Tales of Unrest

"Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels. "

SHAKESPEARE.

Tales of Unrest

By

Joseph Conrad

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons

1898

RD

2012

Copyright, 1 898

By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TROW DIRECTORY

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY

NEW YORK

TO

ADOLF P. KRIEGER

FOR THE SAKE OF OLD DA YS

CONTENTS

Karain: a Memory

The Idiots

Ail Outpost of Progress

The Return

The Lagoon

Karain: a Memory

I

WE knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to
hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I
believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently,
have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not
yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their
newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern
Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short
paragraphs— sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name
wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky
atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subde and penetrating
perfume as of land breezes breathing through die starlight of
bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of
a sombre cliff; great trees, die advanced sentries of immense
forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open
water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, die shallow
water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the
calm of noonday lie upon die level of a polished sea, like a handful
of emeralds on a buckler of steel.

There are faces too— faces dark, truculent, and smiling; the
frank audacious faces of men barefooted, well armed and
noiseless. They thronged the narrow length of our schooner's
decks with their ornamented and barbarous crowd, with die
variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets,
embroideries; with die gleam of scabbards, gold rings, charms,
armlets, lance blades, and jeweled handles of their weapons. They
had an independent bearing, resolute eyes, a restrained manner;
and we seem yet to hear their soft voices speaking of battles,
travels, and escapes; boasting with composure, joking quietly;
sometimes in well-bred murmurs extolling dieir own valour, our
generosity; or celebrating with loyal enthusiasm the virtues of their
ruler. We remember the faces, die eyes, die voices, we see again
the gleam of silk and metal; die murmuring stir of that crowd,
brilliant, festive, and martial; and we seem to feel die touch of
friendly brown hands that, after one short grasp, return to rest on a
chased hilt. They were Karain's people— a devoted following.
Their movements hung on his lips; diey read dieir dioughts in his
eyes; he murmured to them nonchalandy of life and death, and
they accepted his words humbly, like gifts of fate. They were all
free men, and when speaking to him said, "Your slave." On his
passage voices died out as though he had walked guarded by

silence; awed whispers followed him. They called him their war-
chief. He was the ruler of three villages on a narrow plain; the
master of an insignificant foothold on the earth— of a conquered
foothold that, shaped like a young moon, lay ignored between the
hills and the sea.

From die deck of our schooner, anchored in the middle of die
bay, he indicated by a dieatrical sweep of his arm along die jagged
oudine of die hills die whole of his domain; and the ample
movement seemed to drive back its limits, augmenting it suddenly
into something so immense and vague that for a moment it
appeared to be bounded only by die sky. And really, looking at
that place, landlocked from die sea and shut off from die land by
the precipitous slopes of mountains, it was difficult to believe in
the existence of any neighbourhood. It was still, complete,
unknown, and full of a life diat went on stealthily widi a troubling
effect of solitude; of a life that seemed unaccountably empty of
anything that would stir the thought, touch the heart, give a hint of
the ominous sequence of days. It appeared to us a land without
memories, regrets, and hopes; a land where nothing could survive
the coming of the night, and where each sunrise, like a dazzling act
of special creation, was disconnected from the eve and the
morrow.

Karain swept his hand over it. "All mine!" He struck the deck
with his long staff; the gold head flashed like a falling star; very
close behind him a silent old fellow in a richly embroidered black
jacket alone of all the Malays around did not follow die masterful
gesture with a look. He did not even lift his eyelids. He bowed his
head behind his master, and without stirring held hilt up over his
right shoulder a long blade in a silver scabbard. He was there on
duty, but widiout curiosity, and seemed weary, not with age, but
with the possession of a burdensome secret of existence. Karain,
heavy and proud, had a lofty pose and breathed calmly. It was our
first visit, and we looked about curiously.

The bay was like a bottomless pit of intense light. The circular
sheet of water reflected a luminous sky, and the shores enclosing it
made an opaque ring of earth floating in an emptiness of
transparent blue. The hills, purple and arid, stood out heavily on
the sky: dieir summits seemed to fade into a coloured tremble as
of ascending vapour; their steep sides were streaked with the green
of narrow ravines; at their foot lay rice-fields, plantain-patches,
yellow sands. A torrent wound about like a dropped diread.
Clumps of fruit-trees marked die villages; slim palms put their
nodding heads together above the low houses; dried palm-leaf
roofs shone afar, like roofs of gold, behind the dark colonnades of
tree-trunks; figures passed vivid and vanishing; the smoke of fires
stood upright above die masses of flowering bushes; bamboo
fences glittered, running away in broken lines between the fields. A

sudden cry on the shore sounded plaintive in the distance, and
ceased abruptly, as if stifled in the downpour of sunshine; a puff of
breeze made a flash of darkness on the smooth water, touched our
faces, and became forgotten. Nothing moved. The sun blazed
down into a shadowless hollow of colours and stillness.

It was the stage where, dressed splendidly for his part, he
strutted, incomparably dignified, made important by the power he
had to awaken an absurd expectation of something heroic going to
take place— a burst of action or song— upon the vibrating tone of a
wonderful sunshine. He was ornate and disturbing, for one could
not imagine what depth of horrible void such an elaborate front
could be worthy to hide. He was not masked— there was too much
life in him, and a mask is only a lifeless thing; but he presented
himself essentially as an actor, as a human being aggressively dis-
guised. His smallest acts were prepared and unexpected, his
speeches grave, his sentences ominous like hints and complicated
like arabesques. He was treated with a solemn respect accorded in
the irreverent West only to the monarchs of the stage, and he
accepted the profound homage with a sustained dignity seen
nowiiere else but behind the footlights and in the condensed
falseness of some grossly tragic situation. It was almost impossible
to remember who he was— only a petty chief of a conveniently
isolated corner of Mindanao, where w r e could in comparative
safety break the law against the traffic in firearms and ammunition
with the natives. What would happen should one of the moribund
Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanised into a flicker of active
life did not trouble us, once we were inside the bay— so completely
did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world; and besides, in
those days we were imaginative enough to look with a kind of
joyous equanimity on any chance there was of being quietly
hanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance. As
to Karain, nothing could happen to him unless what happens to
all— failure and death; but his quality was to appear clothed in the
illusion of unavoidable success. He seemed too effective, too
necessary there, too much of an essential condition for the
existence of his land and his people, to be destroyed by anything
short of an eardiquake. He summed up his race, his country, the
elemental force of ardent life, of tropical nature. He had its
luxuriant strengdi, its fascination; and, like it, he carried the seed of
peril within.

In many successive visits we came to know his stage well— the
purple semicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the
yellow sands, the streaming green of ravines. All that had the crude
and blended colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, die
suspicious immobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed so
perfectiy the accomplished acting of his amazing pretences diat the
rest of the world seemed shut out for ever from the gorgeous spec-

tacle. There could be nothing outside. It was as if the earth had
gone on spinning, and had left that crumb of its surface alone in
space. He appeared utterly cut off from everything but the
sunshine, and that even seemed to be made for him alone. Once
when asked what was on die odier side of die hills, he said, with a
meaning smile, "Friends and enemies— many enemies; else why
should I buy your rifles and powder?" He was always like this —
word-perfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the mysteries and
certitudes of his surroundings. "Friends and enemies"— nodiing
else. It was impalpable and vast. The eardi had indeed rolled away
from under his land, and he, with his handful of people, stood
surrounded by a silent tumult as of contending shades. Certainly
no sound came from outside. "Friends and enemies!" He might
have added, "and memories," at least as far as he himself was con-
cerned; but he neglected to make diat point dien. It made itself
later on, diough; but it was after die daily performance— in the
wings, so to speak, and with the lights out. Meantime he filled the
stage with barbarous dignity. Some ten years ago he had led his
people— a scratch lot of wandering Bugis— to die conquest of die
bay, and now in his august care they had forgotten all the past, and
had lost all concern for the future. He gave them wisdom, advice,
reward, punishment, life or deadi, with the same serenity of
attitude and voice. He understood irrigation and die art of war— die
qualities of weapons and die craft of boatbuilding. He could
conceal his heart; had more endurance; he could swim longer, and
steer a canoe better than any of his people; he could shoot
straighter, and negotiate more tortuously than any man of his race
I knew. He was an adventurer of die sea, an outcast, a ruler— and
my very good friend. I wish him a quick death in a stand-up fight, a
deadi in sunshine; for he had known remorse and power, and no
man can demand more from life. Day after day he appeared
before us, incomparably faithful to die illusions of the stage, and at
sunset the night descended upon him quickly, like a falling curtain.
The seamed hills became black shadows towering high upon a
clear sky; above them the glittering confusion of stars resembled a
mad turmoil stilled by a gesture; sounds ceased, men slept, forms
vanished— and die reality of die universe alone remained— a
marvelous tiling of darkness and glimmers.

II

BUT it was at night that he talked openly, forgetting the exactions
of his stage. In the daytime there were affairs to be discussed in
state. There were at first between him and me his own splendour,
my shabby suspicio[n]s, and the scenic landscape, that intruded
upon the reality of our lives by its motionless fantasy of outline and

colour. His followers thronged round him; above his head the
broad blades of their spears made a spiked halo of iron points,
and they hedged him from humanity by the shimmer of silks, the
gleam of weapons, the excited and respectful hum of eager voices.
Before sunset he would take leave with ceremony, and go off
sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats. All
the paddles flashed and struck togedier with a mighty splash that
reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A
broad stream of dazzling foam trailed behind die flotilla. The
canoes appeared very black on the white hiss of water; turbaned
heads swayed back and fortii; a multitude of arms in crimson and
yellow rose and fell with one movement; die spearmen upright in
die bows of canoes had variegated sarongs and gleaming shoulders
like bronze statues; the muttered strophes of the paddlers' song
ended periodically in a plaintive shout. They diminished in the
distance; the song ceased; they swarmed on die beach in the long
shadows of die western hills. The sunlight lingered on the purple
crests, and we could see him leading the way to his stockade, a
burly bareheaded figure walking far in advance of a straggling
cortege, and swinging regularly an ebony staff taller dian himself.
The darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully, passing
behind bushes; a long hail or two trailed in die silence of the
evening; and at last die night stretched its smoodi veil over die
shore, die lights, and die voices.

Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of die
schooner would hail a splash of paddles away in die starlit gloom
of die bay; a voice would respond in cautious tones, and our
serang, putting his head down the open skylight, would inform us
without surprise, "That Rajah, he coming. He here now." Karain
appeared noiselessly in die doorway of die little cabin. He was
simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled about his head; for arms
only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle, which he would
politely conceal within a fold of his sarong before stepping over die
direshold. The old sword-bearer's face, die worn-out and
mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it seemed to look out
through the meshes of a fine dark net, could be seen close above
his shoulder. Karain never moved without that attendant, who
stood or squatted close at his back. He had a dislike of an open
space behind him. It was more than a dislike— it resembled fear, a
nervous preoccupation of what went on wiiere he could not see.
This, in view of the evident and fierce loyalty diat surrounded him,
was inexplicable. He was diere alone in die midst of devoted men;
he was safe from neighbourly ambushes, from fraternal ambitions;
and yet more dian one of our visitors had assured us diat their
ruler could not bear to be alone. They said, "Even when he eats
and sleeps diere is always one on the w r atch near him who has
strengdi and weapons." There was indeed always one near him,

though our informants had no conception of that watcher's
strength and weapons, which were both shadowy and terrible. We
knew, but only later on, when we had heard the story. Meantime
we noticed that, even during the most important interviews, Karain
would often give a start, and interrupting his discourse, would
sweep his arm back with a sudden movement, to feel whether the
old fellow was there. The old fellow, impenetrable and weary, was
always there. He shared his food, his repose, and his thoughts; he
knew his plans, guarded his secrets; and, impassive behind his
master's agitation, without stirring the least bit, murmured above
his head in a soothing tone some words difficult to catch.

It was only on board the schooner, when surrounded by white
faces, by unfamiliar sights and sounds, that Karain seemed to
forget the strange obsession that wound like a black thread through
the gorgeous pomp of his public life. At night we treated him in a
free and easy manner, which just stopped short of slapping him on
die back, for there are liberties one must not take with a Malay.
He said himself that on such occasions he was only a private
gentleman coming to see other gentlemen whom he supposed as
well born as himself. I fancy that to the last he believed us to be
emissaries of Government, darkly official persons furthering by
our illegal traffic some dark scheme of high statecraft. Our denials
and protestations were unavailing. He only smiled with discreet
politeness and inquired about the Queen. Every visit began with
that inquiry; he was insatiable of details; he was fascinated by the
holder of a sceptre the shadow of which, stretching from the
westward over the earth and over the seas, passed far beyond his
own hand's-breadth of conquered land. He multiplied questions;
he could never know enough of the Monarch of whom he spoke
with w r onder and chivalrous respect— with a kind of affectionate
awe! Afterwards, when we had learned that he was the son of a
woman who had many years ago ruled a small Bugis state, we
came to suspect that the memory of his mother (of whom he
spoke with enthusiasm) mingled somehow^ in his mind with the
image he tried to form for himself of the far-off Queen whom he
called Great, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate. We had to invent
details at last to satisfy his craving curiosity; and our loyalty must be
pardoned, for w r e tried to make them fit for his august and
resplendent ideal. We talked. The night slipped over us, over the
still schooner, over the sleeping land, and over the sleepless sea
that thundered amongst the reefs outside the bay. His paddlers,
two trustworthy men, slept in the canoe at the foot of our side-
ladder. The old confidant, relieved from duty, dozed on his heels,
with his back against the companion-doorway; and Karain sat
squarely in the ship's wooden armchair, under the slight sway of
the cabin lamp, a cheroot between his dark fingers, and a glass of
lemonade before him. He was amused by the fizz of the thing, but

after a sip or two would let it get flat, and with a courteous wave of
his hand ask for a fresh botde. He decimated our slender stock;
but we did not begrudge it to him, for, when he began, he talked
well. He must have been a great Bugis dandy in his time, for even
then (and when we knew him he was no longer young) his
splendour was spotlessly neat, and he dyed his hair a light shade of
brown. The quiet dignity of his bearing transformed the dim-lit
cuddy of die schooner into an audience -hall. He talked of inter-
island politics with an ironic and melancholy shrewdness. He had
travelled much, suffered not a little, intrigued, fought. He knew
native Courts, European Settlements, the forests, the sea, and, as
he said himself, had spoken in his time to many great men. He
liked to talk with me because I had known some of these men: he
seemed to think that I could understand him, and, with a fine
confidence, assumed that I, at least, could appreciate how much
greater he was himself. But he preferred to talk of his native
country— a small Bugis state on the island of Celebes. I had visited
it some time before, and he asked eagerly for news. As men's
names came up in conversation he would say, "We swam against
one another when we were boys;" or, "We had hunted the deer
together— he could use the noose and the spear as well as I." Now
and then his big dreamy eyes would roll restlessly; he frowned or
smiled, or he would become pensive, and, staring in silence, would
nod slightly for a time at some regretted vision of the past.

His mother had been the ruler of a small semi-independent
state on the sea-coast at the head of the Gulf of Boni. He spoke of
her with pride. She had been a woman resolute in affairs of state
and of her own heart. After the death of her first husband, un-
dismayed by die turbulent opposition of die chiefs, she married a
rich trader, a Korinchi man of no family. Karain was her son by
that second marriage, but his unfortunate descent had apparendy
nothing to do with his exile. He said nothing as to its cause, though
once he let slip with a sigh, "Ha! my land will not feel any more the
weight of my body." But he related willingly die story of his
wanderings, and told us all about the conquest of die bay. Alluding
to the people beyond the hills, he w r ould murmur gently, with a
careless wave of the hand, "They came over the hills once to fight
us, but diose who got away never came again." He thought for a
while, smiling to himself. "Very few got away," he added, with
proud serenity. He cherished die recollections of his successes; he
had an exulting eagerness for endeavour; when he talked, his
aspect was warlike, chivalrous, and uplifting. No wonder his people
admired him. We saw him once walking in daylight amongst die
houses of the settlement. At die doors of huts groups of women
turned to look after him, warbling softly, and with gleaming eyes;
armed men stood out of die way, submissive and erect; others
approached from die side, bending their backs to address him

humbly; an old woman stretched out a draped lean arm—
"Blessings on thy head!" she cried from a dark doorway; a fiery-
eyed man showed above the low fence of a plantain-patch a
streaming face, a bare breast scarred in two places, and bellowed
out pantingly after him, "God give victory to our master!" Karain
walked fast, and with firm long strides; he answered greetings right
and left by quick piercing glances. Children ran forward between
the houses, peeped fearfully round corners; young boys kept up
with him, gliding between bushes: dieir eyes gleamed through the
dark leaves. The old sword-bearer, shouldering the silver scabbard,
shuffled hastily at his heels with bowed head, and his eyes on the
ground. And in the midst of a great stir they passed swift and
absorbed, like two men hurrying through a great solitude.

In his council hall he was surrounded by the gravity of armed
chiefs, while two long rows of old headmen dressed in cotton stuffs
squatted on their heels, with idle arms hanging over dieir knees.
Under die diatch roof supported by smooth columns, of which
each one had cost die life of a straight-stemmed young palm, die
scent of flowering hedges drifted in warm waves. The sun was
sinking. In the open courtyard suppliants walked through die gate,
raising, when yet far off, their joined hands above bowed heads,
and bending low in the bright stream of sunlight. Young girls, with
flowers in dieir laps, sat under die wide-spreading boughs of a big
tree. The blue smoke of wood fires spread in a thin mist above die
high-pitched roofs of houses diat had glistening walls of woven
reeds, and all round them rough wooden pillars under die sloping
eaves. He dispensed justice in die shade; from a high seat he gave
orders, advice, reproof. Now and dien die hum of approbation
rose louder, and idle spearmen that lounged lisdessly against the
posts, looking at the girls, would turn dieir heads slowly. To no
man had been given die shelter of so much respect, confidence,
and awe. Yet at times he would lean forward and appear to listen
as for a far-off note of discord, as if expecting to hear some faint
voice, die sound of light footsteps; or he would start half up in his
seat, as though he had been familiarly touched on the shoulder.
He glanced back with apprehension; his aged follower whispered
inaudibly at his ear; die chiefs turned their eyes away in silence, for
the old wizard, die man who could command ghosts and send evil
spirits against enemies, was speaking low to their ruler. Around die
short stillness of die open place the trees rusded faindy, die soft
laughter of girls playing with die flowers rose in clear bursts of
joyous sound. At the end of upright spear-shafts die long tufts of
dyed horse -hair waved crimson and filmy in the gust of wind; and
beyond the blaze of hedges the brook of limpid quick water ran
invisible and loud under die drooping grass of die bank, with a
great murmur, passionate and gende.

After sunset, far across die fields and over die bay, clusters of

torches could be seen burning under die high roofs of die council
shed. Smoky red flames swayed on high poles, and die fiery blaze
flickered over faces, clung to the smooth trunks of palm-trees,
kindled bright sparks on the rims of metal dishes standing on fine
floor-mats. That obscure adventurer feasted like a king. Small
groups of men crouched in tight circles round die wooden platters;
brown hands hovered over snowy heaps of rice. Sitting upon a
rough couch apart from the odiers, he leaned on his elbow with
inclined head; and near him a youth improvised in a high tone a
song that celebrated his valour and wisdom. The singer rocked
himself to and fro, rolling frenzied eyes; old women hobbled about
with dishes, and men, squatting low, lifted their heads to listen
gravely without ceasing to eat. The song of triumph vibrated in the
night, and the stanzas rolled out mournful and fiery like the
thoughts of a hermit. He silenced it with a sign, "Enough!" An owl
hooted far away, exulting in the delight of deep gloom in dense
foliage; overhead lizards ran in the attap diatch, calling softly; the
dry leaves of die roof rustled; the rumour of mingled voices grew
louder suddenly. After a circular and startled glance, as of a man
waking up abruptly to the sense of danger, he would dirow himself
back, and under the downward gaze of die old sorcerer take up,
wide-eyed, the slender thread of his dream. They watched his
moods; die swelling rumour of animated talk subsided like a wave
on a sloping beach. The chief is pensive. And above the spreading
whisper of lowered voices only a light ratde of weapons would be
heard, a single louder w r ord distinct and alone, or die grave ring of
a big brass tray.

Ill

FOR two years at short intervals we visited him. We came to like
him, to trust him, almost to admire him. He was plotting and
preparing a war with patience, with foresight— with a fidelity to his
purpose and with a steadfastness of which I would have thought
him racially incapable. He seemed fearless of die future, and in his
plans displayed a sagacity diat was only limited by his profound
ignorance of the rest of die world. We tried to enlighten him, but
our attempts to make clear die irresistible nature of die forces
which he desired to arrest failed to discourage his eagerness to
strike a blow for his own primitive ideas. He did not understand
us, and replied by arguments that almost drove one to desperation
by dieir childish shrewdness. He was absurd and unanswerable.
Sometimes we caught glimpses of a sombre, glowing fury within
him— a brooding and vague sense of wrong, and a concentrated lust
of violence which is dangerous in a native. He raved like one
inspired. On one occasion, after we had been talking to him late in

his campong, he jumped up. A great, clear fire blazed in the grove;
lights and shadows danced togedier between the trees; in the still
night bats flitted in and out of die boughs like fluttering flakes of
denser darkness. He snatched the sword from die old man,
whizzed it out of the scabbard, and dirust the point into die eardi.
Upon die diin, upright blade the silver hilt, released, swayed
before him like something alive. He stepped back a pace, and in a
deadened tone spoke fiercely to the vibrating steel: "If there is
virtue in die fire, in the iron, in the hand that forged thee, in the
words spoken over thee, in die desire of my heart, and in the
wisdom of thy makers,— then we shall be victorious together!" He
drew it out, looked along the edge. "Take," he said over his shoul-
der to die old sword-bearer. The other, unmoved on his hams,
wiped the point with a comer of his sarong, and returning die
weapon to its scabbard, sat nursing it on his knees widiout a single
look upwards. Karain, suddenly very calm, reseated himself with
dignity. We gave up remonstrating after this, and let him go his
way to an honourable disaster. All we could do for him was to see
to it diat the powder was good for die money and die rifles service-
able, if old.

But the game was becoming at last too dangerous; and if we,
who had faced it pretty often, diought litde of the danger, it was
decided for us by some very respectable people sitting safely in
counting-houses that the risks were too great, and that only one
more trip could be made. After giving in die usual way many
misleading hints as to our destination, we slipped away quietly, and
after a very quick passage entered the bay. It was early morning,
and even before the anchor went to the bottom the schooner was
surrounded by boats.

The first thing we heard was that Karain 's mysterious sword-
bearer had died a few days ago. We did not attach much
importance to the news. It was certainly difficult to imagine Karain
without his inseparable follower; but the fellow was old, he had
never spoken to one of us, we hardly ever had heard die sound of
his voice; and we had come to look upon him as upon something
inanimate, as a part of our friend's trappings of state— like that
sword he had carried, or the fringed red umbrella displayed during
an official progress. Karain did not visit us in die afternoon as
usual. A message of greeting and a present of fruit and vegetables
came off for us before sunset. Our friend paid us like a banker,
but treated us like a prince. We sat up for him till midnight. Under
the stern awning bearded Jackson jingled an old guitar and sang,
with an execrable accent, Spanish love -songs; while young Hollis
and I, sprawling on the deck, had a game of chess by die light of a
cargo lantern. Karain did not appear. Next day we were busy
unloading, and heard diat die Rajah was unwell. The expected
invitation to visit him ashore did not come. We sent friendly

messages, but, fearing to intrude upon some secret council,
remained on board. Early on the third day we had landed all the
powder and rifles, and also a six-pounder brass gun with its
carriage, which we had subscribed together for a present to our
friend. The afternoon was sultry. Ragged edges of black clouds
peeped over tire hills, and invisible thunderstorms circled outside,
growling like wild beasts. We got the schooner ready for sea,
intending to leave next morning at daylight. All day a merciless sun
blazed down into the bay, fierce and pale, as if at white heat.
Nothing moved on die land. The beach was empty, the villages
seemed deserted; the trees far off stood in unstirring clumps, as if
painted; the white smoke of some invisible bush-fire spread itself
low over the shores of the bay like a settling fog. Late in the day
tiiree of Karain's chief men, dressed in their best and armed to the
teeth, came off in a canoe, bringing a case of dollars. They were
gloomy and languid, and told us they had not seen dieir Rajah for
five days. No one had seen him! We setded all accounts, and after
shaking hands in turn and in profound silence, diey descended
one after another into their boat, and were paddled to the shore,
sitting close togedier, clad in vivid colours, widi hanging heads: die
gold embroideries of their jackets flashed dazzlingly as diey went
away gliding on the smooth water, and not one of diem looked
back once. Before sunset die growling clouds carried widi a rush
the ridge of hills, and came tumbling down the inner slopes.
Everything disappeared; black whirling vapours filled the bay, and
in die midst of diem the schooner swung here and diere in the
shifting gusts of wind. A single clap of thunder detonated in die
hollow with a violence diat seemed capable of bursting into small
pieces die ring of high land, and a warm deluge descended. The
wind died out. We panted in die close cabin; our faces streamed;
die bay outside hissed as if boiling; the water fell in perpendicular
shafts as heavy as lead; it swished about the deck, poured off die
spars, gurgled, sobbed, splashed, murmured in die blind night.
Our lamp burned low. Hollis, stripped to the waist, lay stretched
out on the lockers, with closed eyes and motionless like a
despoiled corpse; at his head Jackson twanged the guitar, and
gasped out in sighs a mournful dirge about hopeless love and eyes
like stars. Then we heard starded voices on deck crying in die rain,
hurried footsteps overhead, and suddenly Karain appeared in the
doonvay of die cabin. His bare breast and his face glistened in the
light; his sarong, soaked, clung about his legs; he had his sheathed
kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair, escaping from under
his red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and down his cheeks. He
stepped in with a headlong stride and looking over his shoulder
like a man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly and opened
his eyes. Jackson clapped his big hand over die strings and the
jingling vibration died suddenly. I stood up.

"We did not hear your boat's hail!" I exclaimed.

"Boat! The man's swum off," drawled out Hollis from the
locker. "Look at him!"

He breathed heavily, wild-eyed, while we looked at him in
silence. Water dripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran
crookedly across tire cabin floor. We could hear Jackson, who had
gone out to drive away our Malay seamen from the doorway of tire
companion; he swore menacingly in tire patter of a heavy shower
and there was a great commotion on deck. The watchmen, scared
out of their wits by tire glimpse of a shadowy figure leaping over
the rail, straight out of the night as it were, had alarmed all hands.

Then Jackson, with glittering drops of water on his hair and
beard, came back looking angry, and Hollis, who, being the
youngest of us, assumed an indolent superiority, said without
stirring, "Give him a dry sarong— give him mine; it's hanging up in
the bathroom." Karain laid the kriss on the table, hilt inwards, and
murmured a few words in a strangled voice.

"What's that?" asked Hollis, who had not heard.

"He apologises for coming in with a weapon in his hand," I
said, dazedly.

"Ceremonious beggar. Tell him we forgive a friend ... on such
a night," drawled out Hollis. "What's wrong?"

Karain slipped the dry sarong over his head, dropped the wet
one at his feet, and stepped out of it. I pointed to the wooden
armchair— his armchair. He sat down very straight, said "Ha!" in a
strong voice; a short shiver shook his broad frame. He looked over
his shoulder uneasily, turned as if to speak to us, but only stared in
a curious blind manner, and again looked back. Jackson bellowed
out, "Watch well on deck there!" heard a faint answer from above,
and reaching out with his foot slammed-to the cabin door.

"All right now," he said.

Karain's lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made the
two round stern-ports facing him glimmer like a pair of cruel and
phosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into
brown dust for an instant, and the looking-glass over the little
sideboard leaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid
light. The roll of thunder came near, crashed over us; the
schooner trembled, and die great voice went on, threatening
terribly, into die distance. For less than a minute a furious shower
ratded on the decks. Karain looked slowly from face to face, and
then the silence became so profound that we all could hear
distinctly the two chronometers in my cabin ticking along with
unflagging speed against one another.

And we three, strangely moved, could not take our eyes from
him. He had become enigmatical and touching, in virtue of diat
mysterious cause drat had driven him through the night and
dirough the thunderstorm to the shelter of the schooner's cuddy.

Not one of us doubted that we were looking at a fugitive,
incredible as it appeared to us. He was haggard, as though he had
not slept for weeks; he had become lean, as though he had not
eaten for days. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunk, the muscles
of his chest and arms twitched slightly as if after an exhausting
contest. Of course, it had been a long swim off to the schooner;
but his face showed another kind of fatigue, the tormented
weariness, the anger and the fear of a struggle against a thought, an
idea— against something that cannot be grappled, that never rests— a
shadow, a nothing, unconquerable and immortal, that preys upon
life. We knew it as tiiough he had shouted it at us. His chest
expanded time after time, as if it could not contain the beating of
his heart. For a moment he had the power of the possessed— the
power to awaken in the beholders wonder, pain, pity, and a fearful
near sense of tilings invisible, of things dark and mute, that
surround the loneliness of mankind. His eyes roamed about
aimlessly for a moment, then became still. He said with effort—

"I came here ... I leaped out of my stockade as after a defeat.
I ran in the night. The water was black. I left him calling on the
edge of black water ... I left him standing alone on the beach. I
swam ... he called out after me ... I swam ..."

He trembled from head to foot, sitting very upright and gazing
straight before him. Left whom? Who called? We did not know.
We could not understand. I said at all hazards—

"Be firm."

The sound of my voice seemed to steady him into a sudden
rigidity, but otherwise he took no notice. He seemed to listen, to
expect something for a moment, then went on—

"He cannot come here— therefore I sought you. You men with
white faces who despise the invisible voices. He cannot abide your
unbelief and your strength."

He was silent for a while, then exclaimed softly—

"Oh! the strength of unbelievers! "

"There's no one here but you— and we three," said Hollis,
quietly. He reclined with his head supported on elbow and did not
budge.

"I know," said Karain. "He has never followed me here. Was
not the wise man ever by my side? But since the old wise man,
who knew of my trouble, has died, I have heard the voice every
night. I shut myself up— for many days— in the dark. I can hear the
sorrowful murmurs of women, the whisper of the wind, of the
running waters; the clash of weapons in the hands of faithful men,
their footsteps— and his voice! . . . Near . . . So! In my ear! I felt
him near . . . His breath passed over my neck. I leaped out without
a cry. All about me men slept quietly. I ran to the sea. He ran by
my side without footsteps, wiiispering, whispering old words— whis-
pering into my ear in his old voice. I ran into the sea; I swam off to

you, with my kriss between my teeth. I, armed, I fled before a
breath— to you. Take me away to your land. The wise old man has
died, and with him is gone the power of his words and charms.
And I can tell no one. No one. There is no one here faithful
enough and wise enough to know. It is only near you, unbelievers,
that my trouble fades like a mist under the eye of day."

He turned to me.

"With you I go!" he cried in a contained voice. "With you,
who know so many of us. I want to leave this land— my people . . .
and him— there!"

He pointed a shaking finger at random over his shoulder. It
was hard for us to bear the intensity of that undisclosed distress.
Hollis stained at him hard. I asked gently—

"Where is the danger?"

"Everywhere outside this place," he answered, mournfully. "In
every place where I am. He waits for me on the paths, under the
trees, in the place where I sleep— everywhere but here."

He looked round the little cabin, at the painted beams, at the
tarnished varnish of bulkheads; he looked round as if appealing to
all its shabby strangeness, to tire disorderly jumble of unfamiliar
things that belong to an inconceivable life of stress, of power, of
endeavour, of unbelief— to die strong life of white men, which rolls
on irresistible and hard on tire edge of outer darkness. He
stretched out his arms as if to embrace it and us. We waited. The
wind and rain had ceased, and the stillness of tire night round the
schooner was as dumb and complete as if a dead world had been
laid to rest in a grave of clouds. We expected him to speak. The
necessity within him tore at his lips. There are those who say that a
native will not speak to a white man. Error. No man will speak to
his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does not
come to teach or to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts
all things, words are spoken by the camp-fires, in the shared
solitude of the sea, in riverside villages, in resting-places sur-
rounded by forests— words are spoken that take no account of race
or colour. One heart speaks— another one listens; and tire earth,
the sea, the sky, the passing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the
futile tale of the burden of life.

He spoke at last. It is impossible to convey tire effect of his
story. It is undying, it is but a memory, and its vividness cannot be
made clear to another mind any more than tire vivid emotions of a
dream. One must have seen his innate splendour, one must have
known him before— looked at him then. The wavering gloom of
the little cabin; the breathless stillness outside, through which only
the lapping of water against the schooner's sides could be heard;
Hollis's pale face, with steady dark eyes, the energetic head of
Jackson held up between two big palms, and with tire long yellow
hair of his beard flowing over the strings of the guitar lying on the

table; Karain's upright and motionless pose, his tone— all this made
an impression that cannot be forgotten. He faced us across the
table. His dark head and bronze torso appeared above the
tarnished slab of wood, gleaming and still as if cast in metal. Only
his lips moved, and his eyes glowed, went out, blazed again, or
stared mournfully. His expressions came straight from his
tormented heart. His words sounded low, in a sad murmur as of
running water; at times they rang loud like the clash of a war-gong—
or trailed slowly like weary travelers— or rushed forward with the
speed of fear.

IV

THIS is, imperfectly, what he said—

"It was after die great trouble that broke die alliance of die four
states of Wajo. We fought amongst ourselves, and die Dutch
watched from afar till we were weary. Then die smoke of their fire-
ships was seen at die mouth of our rivers, and dieir great men
came in boats full of soldiers to talk to us of protection and peace.
We answered with caution and wisdom, for our villages were
burnt, our stockades weak, the people weary, and the weapons
blunt They came and went; diere had been much talk, but after
diey went away everything seemed to be as before, only their ships
remained in sight from our coast, and very soon dieir traders came
amongst us under a promise of safety. My brodier was a Ruler,
and one of diose who had given die promise. I was young then,
and had fought in the war, and Pata Matara had fought by my side.
We had shared hunger, danger, fatigue, and victory. His eyes saw
my danger quickly, and twice my arm had preserved his life. It was
his destiny. He was my friend. And he was great amongst us— one
of diose who were near my brodier, the Ruler. He spoke in
council, his courage was great, he was the chief of many villages
round die great lake that is in the middle of our country as die
heart is in the middle of a man's body. When his sword was
carried into a campong in advance of his coming, die maidens
whispered wonderingly under the fruit-trees, die rich men
consulted together in die shade, and a feast was made ready with
rejoicing and songs. He had die favour of the Ruler and die af-
fection of die poor. He loved war, deer hunts, and the charms of
women. He was the possessor of jewels, of lucky weapons, and of
men's devotion. He was a fierce man; and I had no other friend.

"I was the chief of a stockade at the mouth of die river, and
collected tolls for my brother from die passing boats. One day I
saw a Dutch trader go up die river. He went up with three boats,
and no toll was demanded from him, because die smoke of Dutch
war-ships stood out from die open sea, and we were too weak to

forget treaties. He went up under the promise of safety, and my
brother gave him protection. He said he came to trade. He lis-
tened to our voices, for we are men who speak openly and widiout
fear; he counted the number of our spears, he examined the trees,
the running waters, the grasses of the bank, the slopes of our hills.
He went up to Matara's country and obtained permission to build
a house. He traded and planted. He despised our joys, our
thoughts, and our sorrows. His face was red, his hair like flame,
and his eyes pale, like a river mist; he moved heavily, and spoke
with a deep voice; he laughed aloud like a fool, and knew no
courtesy in his speech. He was a big, scornful man, who looked
into women's faces and put his hand on the shoulders of free men
as diough he had been a noble-born chief. We bore with him.
Time passed.

"Then Pata Matara's sister fled from the campong and went to
live in the Dutchman's house. She was a great and willful lady: I
had seen her once carried high on slaves' shoulders amongst the
people, with uncovered face, and I had heard all men say that her
beauty was extreme, silencing die reason and ravishing the heart of
the beholders. The people were dismayed; Matara's face was
blackened with that disgrace, for she knew she had been promised
to anodier man. Matara went to the Dutchman's house, and said,
'Give her up to die— she is die daughter of chiefs.' The white man
refused, and shut himself up, while his servants kept guard night
and day with loaded guns. Matara raged. My brodier called a
council. But die Dutch ships were near, and watched our coast
greedily. My brother said, 'If he dies now our land will pay for his
blood. Leave him alone till we grow stronger and die ships are
gone.' Matara was wise; he waited and watched. But the white man
feared for her life and went away.

"He left his house, his plantations, and his goods! He
departed, armed and menacing, and left all— for her! She had rav-
ished his heart! From my stockade I saw him put out to sea in a big
boat. Matara and I watched him from the fighting platform behind
die pointed stakes. He sat cross-legged, with his gun in his hands,
on die roof at the stern of his prau. The barrel of his rifle glinted
aslant before his big red face. The broad river was stretched under
him— level, smooth, shining, like a plain of silver; and his prau,
looking very short and black from the shore, glided along the silver
plain and over into the blue of the sea.

"Thrice Matara, standing by my side, called aloud her name
with grief and imprecations. He stirred my heart. It leaped diree
times; and three times with die eye of my mind I saw in the gloom
within the enclosed space of die prau a woman with streaming hair
going away from her land and her people. I was angry— and sorry.
Why? And then I also cried out insults and threats. Matara said,
'Now they have left our land their lives are mine. I shall follow and

strike— and, alone, pay the price of blood.' A great wind was
sweeping towards the setting sun over the empty river. I cried, 'By
your side I will go!' He lowered his head in sign of assent. It was
his destiny. The sun had set, and the trees swayed their boughs
with a great noise above our heads.

"On the third night we two left our land together in a trading
prau.

"The sea met us— the sea, wide, pathless, and without voice. A
sailing prau leaves no track. We went south. The moon was full;
and, looking up, we said to one another, 'When the next moon
shines as this one, we shall return and diey will be dead.' It was
fifteen years ago. Many moons have grown full and withered, and I
have not seen my land since. We sailed south; we overtook many
praus; we examined the creeks and the bays; we saw the end of our
coast, of our island— a steep cape over a disturbed strait, where
drift the shadows of shipwrecked praus and drowned men clamour
in the night. The wide sea was all round us now. We saw a great
mountain burning in the midst of water; we saw thousands of islets
scattered like bits of iron fired from a big gun; we saw a long coast
of mountain and lowlands stretching away in sunshine from west to
east. It was Java. We said, 'diey are there; dieir time is near, and
we shall return or die cleansed from dishonour.'

"We landed. Is there anything good in that country? The paths
run straight and hard and dusty. Stone campongs, full of white
faces, are surrounded by fertile fields, but every man you meet is a
slave. The rulers live under die edge of a foreign sword. We
ascended mountains, we traversed valleys; at sunset we entered
villages. We asked every one, 'Have you seen such a white man?'
Some stared; odiers laughed; women gave us food, sometimes,
with fear and respect, as diough we had been distracted by the
visitation of God; but some did not understand our language, and
some cursed us, or, yawning, asked with contempt the reason of
our quest Once, as we were going away, an old man called after us,
'Desist! '

"We went on. Concealing our weapons, we stood humbly
aside before die horsemen on die road; we bowed low in the
courtyards of chiefs who were no better dian slaves. We lost
ourselves in the fields, in the jungle; and one night, in a tangled
forest, we came upon a place where crumbling old walls had fallen
amongst the trees, and where strange stone idols— carved images of
devils with many arms and legs, with snakes twined round their
bodies, with twenty heads and holding a hundred swords— seemed
to live and direaten in the light of our camp-fire. Nothing dismayed
us. And on die road, by every fire, in resting-places, we always
talked of her and of him. Their time was near. We spoke of
nothing else. No! not of hunger, diirst, weariness, and faltering
hearts. No! we spoke of him and her? Of her! And we diought of

them— of her! Matara brooded by the fire. I sat and thought and
thought, till suddenly I could see again the image of a woman,
beautiful, and young, and great, and proud, and tender, going away
from her land and her people. Matara said, 'When we find them
we shall kill her first to cleanse the dishonour— then the man must
die.' I would say, 'It shall be so; it is your vengeance.' He stared
long at me with his big sunken eyes.

"We came back to the coast. Our feet were bleeding, our
bodies thin. We slept in rags under the shadow of stone enclos-
ures; we prowled, soiled and lean, about the gateways of white
men's courtyards. Their hairy dogs barked at us, and their servants
shouted from afar, 'Begone!' Low-born wretches, that keep watch
over the streets of stone campongs, asked us who we were. We
lied, we cringed, we smiled with hate in our hearts, and we kept
looking here, looking there, for them— for the white man with hair
like flame, and for her, for the woman who had broken faith, and
therefore must die. We looked. At last in every woman's face I
thought I could see hers. We ran swiftly. No! Sometimes Matara
would whisper, 'Here is the man,' and we waited, crouching. He
came near. It was not the man— those Dutchmen are all alike. We
suffered the anguish of deception. In my sleep I saw her face, and
was both joyful and sorry. . . . Why? ... I seemed to hear a
whisper near me. I turned swiftly. She was not there! And as we
trudged wearily from stone city to stone city I seemed to hear a
light footstep near me. A time came when I heard it always, and I
was glad. I thought, walking dizzy and weary in sunshine on the
hard paths of white men— I thought, She is there— with us! . . .
Matara was sombre. We were often hungry.

"We sold the carved sheaths of our krisses— the ivory sheaths
with golden ferules. We sold the jeweled hilts. But we kept the
blades— for them. The blades that never touch but kill— we kept the
blades for her . . . Why? She was always by our side . . . We
starved. We begged. We left Java at last.

"We went West, we went East. We saw many lands, crowds of
strange faces, men that live in trees and men who eat their old
people. We cut rattans in the forest for a handful of rice, and for a
living swept the decks of big ships and heard curses heaped upon
our heads. We toiled in villages; we wandered upon the seas with
the Bajow people, who have no country. We fought for pay; we
hired ourselves to work for Goram men, and were cheated; and
under the orders of rough white -faces we dived for pearls in barren
bays, dotted with black rocks, upon a coast of sand and desolation.
And everywhere we watched, we listened, we asked. We asked
traders, robbers, white men. We heard jeers, mockery, threats-
words of wonder and words of contempt. We never knew rest; we
never thought of home, for our work was not done. A year passed,
then another. I ceased to count the number of nights, of moons, of

years. I watched over Matara. He had my last handful of rice; if
there was water enough for one he drank it; I covered him up
when he shivered with cold; and when the hot sickness came upon
him I sat sleepless through many nights and fanned his face. He
was a fierce man, and my friend. He spoke of her with fury in the
daytime, with sorrow in the dark; he remembered her in health, in
sickness. I said nothing; but I saw her every day— always! At first I
saw only her head, as of a woman walking in the low mist on a
river bank. Then she sat by our fire. I saw her! I looked at her! She
had tender eyes and a ravishing face. I murmured to her in the
night. Matara said sleepily sometimes, 'to whom are you talking?
Who is there?' I answered quickly, 'No one' ... It was a lie! She
never left me. She shared the warmth of our fire, she sat on my
couch of leaves, she swam on the sea to follow me ... I saw her! . .
. I tell you I saw her long black hair spread behind her upon the
moonlit water as she struck out witii bare arms by the side of a
swift prau. She was beautiful, she was faithful, and in the silence of
foreign countries she spoke to me very low in the language of my
people. No one saw her; no one heard her; she was mine only! In
daylight she moved witii a swaying walk before me upon the weary
paths; her figure was straight and flexible like the stem of a slender
tree; the heels of her feet were round and polished like shells of
eggs; with her round arm she made signs. At night she looked into
my face. And she was sad! Her eyes were tender and frightened;
her voice soft and pleading. Once I murmured to her, 'You shall
not die,' and she smiled . . . ever after she smiled! . . . She gave me
courage to bear weariness and hardships. Those were times of
pain, and she soothed me. We wandered patient in our search.
We knew deception, false hopes; we knew captivity, sickness,
thirst, misery, despair. . . . Enough! We found them! . . ."

He cried out the last words and paused. His face was
impassive, and he kept still like a man in a trance. Hollis sat up
quickly, and spread his elbows on the table. Jackson made a
brusque movement, and accidently touched the guitar. A plaintive
resonance filled the cabin witii confused vibrations and died out
slowly. Then Karain began to speak again. The restrained
fierceness of his tone seemed to rise like a voice from outside, like
a tiling unspoken but heard; it filled the cabin and enveloped in its
intense and deadened murmur the motionless figure in the chair.

"We were on our way to Atjeh, where there was war; but the
vessel ran on a sandbank, and we had to land in Delli. We had
earned a little money, and had bought a gun from some Selangore
traders; only one gun, which was fired by the spark of a stone:
Matara carried it We landed. Many white men lived there, planting
tobacco on conquered plains, and Matara . . . But no matter. He
saw him! . . . The Dutchman! ... At last! . . . We crept and
watched. Two nights and a day we watched. He had a house— a big

house in a clearing in the midst of his fields; flowers and bushes
grew around; there were narrow paths of yellow earth between the
cut grass, and thick hedges to keep people out. The third night we
came armed, and lay behind a hedge.

"A heavy dew seemed to soak through our flesh and made our
very entrails cold. The grass, the twigs, the leaves, covered with
drops of water, were grey in the moonlight. Matara, curled up in
the grass, shivered in his sleep. My teeth ratded in my head so
loud that I was afraid the noise would wake up all die land. Afar,
the watchmen of white men's houses struck wooden clappers and
hooted in the darkness. And, as every night, I saw her by my side.
She smiled no more! . . . The fire of anguish burned in my breast,
and she whispered to me widi compassion, with pity, softly— as
women will; she soodied die pain of my mind; she bent her face
over me— the face of a woman who ravishes the hearts and silences
the reason of men. She was all mine, and no one could see her—
no one of living mankind! Stars shone dirough her bosom,
dirough her floating hair. I was overcome with regret, with ten-
derness, with sorrow. Matara slept . . . Had I slept? Matara was
shaking me by the shoulder, and die fire of die sun was drying die
grass, the bushes, the leaves. It was day. Shreds of white mist hung
between die branches of trees.

"Was it night or day? I saw nothing again till I heard Matara
breathe quickly where he lay, and then outside the house I saw
her. I saw them both. They had come out. She sat on a bench
under the wall, and twigs laden with flowers crept high above her
head, hung over her hair. She had a box on her lap, and gazed into
it, counting the increase of her pearls. The Dutchman stood by
looking on; he smiled down at her; his white teeth flashed; the hair
on his lip was like two twisted flames. He was big and fat, and
joyous, and without fear. Matara tipped fresh priming from the
hollow of his palm, scraped the flint with his diumb-nail, and gave
the gun to me. To me! I took it ... O fate!

"He whispered into my ear, lying on his stomach, 'I shall creep
close and then amok ... let her die by my hand. You take aim at
the fat swine diere. Let him see me strike my shame off the face of
the earth— and then . . . you are my friend— kill with a sure shot.' I
said nothing; there was no air in my chest— diere was no air in the
w r orld. Matara had gone suddenly from my side. The grass
nodded. Then a bush rustled. She lifted her head.

"I saw her! The consoler of sleepless nights, of weary days; the
companion of troubled years! I saw her! She looked straight at die
place where I crouched. She was there as I had seen her for
years— a faithful wanderer by my side. She looked with sad eyes
and had smiling lips; she looked at me . . . Smiling lips! Had I not
promised that she should not die!

"She w r as far off and I felt her near. Her touch caressed me,

and her voice murmured, whispered above me, around me, 'Who
shall be thy companion, who shall console thee if I die?' I saw a
flowering thicket to the left of her stir a little . . . Matara was ready .
. . I cried aloud— 'return!'

"She leaped up; the box fell; the pearls streamed at her feet.
The big Dutchman by her side rolled menacing eyes through the
still sunshine. The gun went up to my shoulder. I was kneeling and
I was firm— firmer than the trees, the rocks, the mountains. But in
front of the steady long barrel the fields, the house, the earth, the
sky swayed to and fro like shadows in a forest on a windy day.
Matara burst out of the thicket; before him the petals of torn
flowers whirled high as if driven by a tempest. I heard her cry; I
saw her spring with open arms in front of the white man. She was a
woman of my country and of noble blood. They are so! I heard
her shriek of anguish and fear— and all stood still! The fields, the
house, the earth, the sky stood still— while Matara leaped at her
with uplifted arm. I pulled the trigger, saw a spark, heard nothing;
the smoke drove back into my face, and then I could see Matara
roll over head first and lie with stretched arms at her feet. Ha! A
sure shot! The sunshine fell on my back colder than the running
water. A sure shot! I flung the gun after the shot. Those two stood
over the dead man as though they had been bewitched by a charm.
I shouted at her, 'Live and remember!' Then for a time I stumbled
about in a cold darkness.

"Behind me there were great shouts, the running of many feet;
strange men surrounded me, cried meaningless words into my
face, pushed me, dragged me, supported me ... I stood before the
big Dutchman: he stared as if bereft of his reason. He wanted to
know, he talked fast, he spoke of gratitude, he offered me food,
shelter, gold— he asked many questions. I laughed in his face. I
said, 'I am a Korinchi traveler from Perak over there, and know
nothing of that dead man. I was passing along the path when I
heard a shot, and your senseless people rushed out and dragged
me here.' He lifted his arms, he wondered, he could not believe,
he could not understand, he clamoured in his own tongue! She
had her arms clasped round his neck, and over her shoulder
stared back at me with wide eyes. I smiled and looked at her; I
smiled and waited to hear the sound of her voice. The white man
asked her suddenly, 'Do you know him?' I listened— my life was in
my ears! She looked at me long, she looked at me with unflinching
eyes, and said aloud, 'No! I never saw him before.' . . . What!
Never before? Had she forgotten already? Was it possible? For-
gotten already— after so many years— so many years of wandering,
of companionship, of trouble, of tender words! Forgotten already!
... I tore myself out from the hands that held me and went away
without a word . . . They let me go.

"I was weary. Did I sleep? I do not know. I remember walking

upon a broad path under a clear starlight; and diat strange country
seemed so big, die rice-fields so vast, diat, as I looked around, my
head swam widi die fear of space. Then I saw a forest. The joyous
starlight was heavy upon me. I turned off die path and entered the
forest, which was very sombre and very sad."

V

KARAIN'S tone had been getting lower and lower, as though he
had been going away from us, till die last words sounded faint but
clear, as if shouted on a calm day from a very great distance. He
moved not. He stared fixedly past die motionless head of Hollis,
who faced him, as still as himself. Jackson had turned sideways,
and with elbow on the table shaded his eyes with the palm of his
hand. And I looked on, surprised and moved; I looked at diat
man, loyal to a vision, betrayed by his dream, spurned by his
illusion, and coming to us unbelievers for help— against a diought.
The silence was profound; but it seemed full of noiseless
phantoms, of things sorrowful, shadowy, and mute, in whose
invisible presence die firm, pulsating beat of the two ship's
chronometers ticking off steadily the seconds of Greenwich Time
seemed to me a protection and a relief. Karain stared stonily; and
looking at his rigid figure, I diought of his wanderings, of diat
obscure Odyssey of revenge, of all die men that wander amongst
illusions; of die illusions as restiess as men; of die illusions faidiful,
faidiless; of the illusions that give joy, that give sorrow, that give
pain, diat give peace; of the invincible illusions diat can make life
and death appear serene, inspiring, tormented, or ignoble.

A murmur was heard; that voice from outside seemed to flow r
out of a dreaming world into the lamplight of the cabin. Karain was
speaking.

"I lived in die forest.

"She came no more. Never! Never once! I lived alone. She
had forgotten. It was well. I did not want her; I wanted no one. I
found an abandoned house in an old clearing. Nobody came near.
Sometimes I heard in the distance die voices of people going along
a padi. I slept; I rested; diere was wild rice, water from a running
stream— and peace! Every night I sat alone by my small fire before
die hut Many nights passed over my head.

"Then, one evening, as I sat by my fire after having eaten, I
looked down on the ground and began to remember my wan-
derings. I lifted my head. I had heard no sound, no rustie, no
footsteps— but I lifted my head. A man was coming towards me
across the small clearing. I waited. He came up widiout a greeting
and squatted down into die firelight Then he turned his face to
me. It was Matara. He stared at me fiercely with his big sunken

eyes. The night was cold; the heat died suddenly out of the fire,
and he stared at me. I rose and went away from there, leaving him
hy the fire that had no heat.

"I walked all that night, all next day, and in the evening made
up a big blaze and sat down— to wait for him. He did not come into
die light. I heard him in the bushes here and there, whispering,
whispering. I understood at last— I had heard the words before,
'You are my friend— kill with a sure shot.'

"I bore it as long as I could— then leaped away, as on this very
night I leaped from my stockade and swam to you. I ran— I ran
crying like a child left alone and far from die houses. He ran by
my side, without footsteps, whispering, whispering— invisible and
heard. I sought people— I wanted men around me! Men who had
not died! And again we two wandered. I sought danger, violence,
and death. I fought in the Atjeh war, and a brave people wondered
at die valiance of a stranger. But we were two; he warded off die
blows . . . Why? I wanted peace, not life. And no one could see
him; no one knew— I dared tell no one. At times he would leave
me, but not for long; then he would return and whisper or stare.
My heart was torn with a strange fear, but could not die. Then I
met an old man.

"You all knew him. People here called him my sorcerer, my
servant and sword-bearer; but to me he was father, mother,
protection, refuge, and peace. When I met him he was returning
from a pilgrimage, and I heard him intoning die prayer of sunset.
He had gone to the holy place with his son, his son's wife, and a
littie child; and on their return, by die favour of the Most High,
they all died: the strong man, the young mother, die littie child—
they died; and die old man reached his country alone. He was a
pilgrim serene and pious, very wise and very lonely. I told him all.
For a time we lived together. He said over me words of
compassion, of wisdom, of prayer. He warded from me the shade
of the dead. I begged him for a charm that would make me safe.
For a long time he refused; but at last, with a sigh and a smile, he
gave me one. Doubtless he could command a spirit stronger than
the unrest of my dead friend, and again I had peace; but I had
become resdess, and a lover of turmoil and danger. The old man
never left me. We travelled together. We were welcomed by die
great; his wisdom and my courage are remembered where your
strength, O white men, is forgotten! We served the Sultan of Sula.
We fought the Spaniards. There were victories, hopes, defeats,
sorrow, blood, women's tears . . . What for? . . . We fled. We
collected wanderers of a warlike race and came here to fight again.
The rest you know. I am die ruler of a conquered land, a lover of
war and danger, a fighter and a plotter. But the old man has died,
and I am again die slave of the dead. He is not here now to drive
away the reproachful shade— to silence the lifeless voice! The

power of his charm has died with him. And I know fear; and I
hear die whisper, 'Kill! kill! kill!' . . . Have I not killed enough? . . "

For die first time diat night a sudden convulsion of madness
and rage passed over his face. His wavering glances darted here
and diere like scared birds in a thunderstorm. He jumped up,
shouting—

"By the spirits diat drink blood: by the spirits diat cry in the
night: by all the spirits of fury, misfortune, and death, I swear-
some day I will strike into every heart I meet— I ..."

He looked so dangerous diat we all three leaped to our feet,
and Hollis, widi die back of his hand, sent the kriss flying off die
table. I believe we shouted together. It was a short scare, and die
next moment he was again composed in his chair, widi diree white
men standing over him in radier foolish attitudes. We felt a little
ashamed of ourselves. Jackson picked up the kriss, and, after an
inquiring glance at me, gave it to him. He received it widi a stately
inclination of the head and stuck it in die twist of his sarong, widi
punctilious care to give his weapon a pacific position. Then he
looked up at us widi an austere smile. We were abashed and
reproved. Hollis sat sideways on the table and, holding his chin in
his hand, scrutinised him in pensive silence. I said—

"You must abide widi your people. They need you. And there
is forgetfulness in life. Even the dead cease to speak in time."

"Am I a woman, to forget long years before an eyelid has had
die time to beat twice?" he exclaimed, with bitter resentment. He
startled me. It was amazing. To him his life— that cruel mirage of
love and peace— seemed as real, as undeniable, as theirs would be
to any saint, philosopher, or fool of us all. Hollis muttered—

"You won't soothe him with your platitudes."

Karain spoke to me.

"You know us. You have lived with us. Why?— we cannot
know; but you understand our sorrows and our dioughts. You
have lived widi my people, and you understand our desires and
our fears. With you I will go. To your land— to your people. To
your people, who live in unbelief; to whom day is day, and night is
night— nothing more, because you understand all tilings seen, and
despise all else! To your land of unbelief, where the dead do not
speak, where every man is wise, and alone— and at peace!"

"Capital description," murmured Hollis, with the flicker of a
smile.

Karain hung his head.

"I can toil, and fight— and be faidiful," he whispered, in a weary
tone, "but I cannot go back to him who waits for me on die shore.
No! Take me widi you . . . Or else give me some of your strength—
of your unbelief. . . A charm! ..."

He seemed utterly exhausted.

"Yes, take him home," said Hollis, very low, as if debating with

himself. "That would be one way. The ghosts there are in society,
and talk affably to ladies and gentlemen, but would scorn a naked
human being— like our princely friend . . . Naked . . . Flayed! I
should say. I am sorry for him. Impossible— of course. The end of
all this shall be," he went on, looking up at us— "the end of this
shall be, that some day he will run amuck amongst his faithful
subjects and send ad patres ever so many of them before they
make up their minds to the disloyalty of knocking him on the
head."

I nodded. I thought it more than probable that such would be
the end of Karain. It was evident that he had been hunted by his
thought along the very limit of human endurance, and very little
more pressing was needed to make him swerve over into the form
of madness peculiar to his race. The respite he had during the old
man's life made die return of the torment unbearable. That much
was clear.

He lifted his head suddenly; we had imagined for a moment
diat he had been dozing.

"Give me your protection— or your strength!" he cried. "A
charm . . . a weapon!"

Again his chin fell on his breast. We looked at him, then
looked at one another with suspicious awe in our eyes, like men
who come unexpectedly upon die scene of some mysterious
disaster. He had given himself up to us; he had thrust into our
hands his errors and his torment, his life and his peace; and we did
not know what to do widi that problem from the outer darkness.
We three white men, looking at that Malay, could not find one
word to die purpose amongst us— if indeed diere existed a word
that could solve that problem. We pondered, and our hearts sank.
We felt as diough we diree had been called to die very gate of
Infernal Regions to judge, to decide the fate of a wanderer coming
suddenly from a world of sunshine and illusions.

"By Jove, he seems to have a great idea of our power,"
whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence,
the feeble plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson,
widi bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against die bulkhead
of the cabin. He was bending his head under the deck beam; his
fair beard spread out magnificently over his chest; he looked
colossal, ineffectual, and mild. There was somediing lugubrious in
the aspect of the cabin; the air in it seemed to become slowly
charged with the cruel chill of helplessness, with the pitiless anger
of egoism against die incomprehensible form of an intruding pain.
We had no idea what to do; we began to resent bitterly die hard
necessity to get rid of him.

Hollis mused, muttered suddenly with a short laugh, "Strengdi
. . . Protection . . . Charm." He slipped off the table and left the
cuddy widiout a look at us. It seemed a base desertion. Jackson

and I exchanged indignant glances. We could hear him
rummaging in his pigeon-hole of a cabin. Was die fellow actually
going to bed? Karain sighed. It was intolerable!

Then Hollis reappeared, holding in both hands a small leadier
box. He put it down gendy on die table and looked at us widi a
queer gasp, we thought, as though he had from some cause
become speechless for a moment, or were ethically uncertain
about producing that box. But in an instant the insolent and
unerring wisdom of his youth gave him the needed courage. He
said, as he unlocked the box with a very small key, "Look as
solemn as you can, you fellows." Probably we looked only
surprised and stupid, for he glanced over his shoulder, and said
angrily—

"This is no play; I am going to do something for him. Look
serious. Confound it! . . . Can't you lie a little . . . for a friend!"

Karain seemed to take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw
open the lid of the box his eyes flew to it— and so did ours. The
quilted crimson satin of the inside put in a violent patch of colour
into die sombre atmosphere; it was something positive to look at—
it was fascinating.

VI

HOLLIS looked smiling into the box. He had lately made a dash
home through the Canal. He had been away six months, and only
joined us again just in time for this last trip. We had never seen die
box before. His hands hovered above it; and he talked to us
ironically, but his face became as grave as though he were
pronouncing a powerful incantation over die tilings inside.

"Lvery one of us," he said, with pauses that somehow were
more offensive than his words— "every one of us, you'll admit, has
been haunted by some women . . . And ... as to friends . . .
dropped by the way . . . Well! . . . ask yourselves . . ."

He paused. Karain stared. A deep rumble was heard high up
under the deck. Jackson spoke seriously—

"Don't be so beastly cynical."

"All! You are without guile," said Hollis, sadly. "You will learn
. . . Meantime this Malay has been our friend ..."

He repeated several times thoughtfully, "Friend . . . Malay.
Friend, Malay," as though weighing the words against one another,
then went on more briskly—

"A good fellow— a gentleman in his way. We can't, so to speak,
turn our backs on his confidence and belief in us. Those Malays
are easily impressed— all nerves, you know— therefore ..."

He turned to me sharply.

"You know him best," he said, in a practical tone. "Do you

think he is fanatical— I mean very strict in his faith?"

I stammered in profound amazement that "I did not think so."

"It's on account of its being a likeness— an engraved image,"
muttered Hollis, enigmatically, turning to the box. He plunged his
fingers into it. Karain's lips were parted and his eyes shone. We
looked into the box.

There were there a couple of reels of cotton, a packet of
needles, a bit of silk ribbon, dark blue; a cabinet photograph, at
which Hollis stole a glance before laying it on the table face
downwards. A girl's portrait, I could see. There were, amongst a
lot of various small objects, a bunch of flowers, a narrow white
glove with many buttons, a slim packet of letters carefully tied up.
Amulets of white men! Charms and talismans! Charms that keep
them straight, that drive them crooked, that have the power to
make a young man sigh, an old man smile. Potent things that
procure dreams of joy, thoughts of regret; that soften hard hearts,
and can temper a soft one to the hardness of steel. Gifts of
heaven— tilings of earth . . .

Hollis rummaged in the box.

And it seemed to me, during that moment of waiting, that the
cabin of the schooner was becoming filled with a stir invisible and
living as of subtle breaths. All the ghosts driven out of the
unbelieving West by men who pretend to be wise and alone and at
peace— all the homeless ghosts of an unbelieving world— appeared
suddenly round the figure of Hollis bending over the box; all the
exiled and charming shades of loved women; all the beautiful and
tender ghosts of ideals, remembered, forgotten, cherished,
execrated; all the cast-out and reproachful ghosts of friends
admired, trusted, traduced, betrayed, left dead by the way— they all
seemed to come from the inhospitable regions of the earth to
crowd into the gloomy cabin, as though it had been a refuge and,
in all the unbelieving world, the only place of avenging belief. ... It
lasted a second— all disappeared. Hollis was facing us alone with
something small that glittered between his fingers. It looked like a
coin.

"All! here it is," he said.

He held it up. It was a sixpence— a Jubilee sixpence. It was gilt;
it had a hole punched near the rim. Hollis looked towards Karain.

"A charm for our friend," he said to us. "The tiling itself is of
great power— money, you know— and his imagination is struck. A
loyal vagabond; if only his puritanism doesn't shy at a likeness . . ."

We said nothing. We did not know whether to be scandalised,
amused, or relieved. Hollis advanced towards Karain, who stood
up as if startled, and then, holding the coin up, spoke in Malay.

"This is the image of the Great Queen, and the most powerful
tiling the white men know," he said, solemnly.

Karain covered the handle of his kriss in sign of respect, and

stared at the crowned head.

"The Invincible, the Pious," he muttered.

"She is more powerful than Suleiman the Wise, who
commanded the genii, as you know," said Hollis, gravely. "I shall
give this to you."

He held the sixpence in the palm of his hand, and looking at it
thoughtfully, spoke to us in English.

"She commands a spirit, too— the spirit of her nation; a
masterful, conscientious, unscrupulous, unconquerable devil . . .
that does a lot of good— incidentally ... a lot of good ... at times—
and wouldn't stand any fuss from die best ghost out for such a little
thing as our friend's shot. Don't look thunderstruck, you fellows.
Help me to make him believe— everything's in diat."

"His people will be shocked," I murmured.

Hollis looked fixedly at Karain, who was die incarnation of die
very essence of still excitement. He stood rigid, with head thrown
back; his eyes rolled wildly, flashing; the dilated nostrils quivered.

"Hang it all!" said Hollis at last, "he is a good fellow. I'll give
him something that I shall really miss."

He took the ribbon out of the box, smiled at it scornfully, then
with a pair of scissors cut out a piece from the palm of die glove.

"I shall make him a thing like those Italian peasants wear, you
know."

He sewed the coin in the delicate leather, sewed the leadier to
die ribbon, tied die ends together. He worked with haste. Karain
watched his fingers all die time.

"Now then," he said— then stepped up to Karain. They looked
close into one another's eyes. Those of Karain stared in a lost
glance, but Hollis's seemed to grow darker and looked out
masterful and compelling. They were in violent contrast together-
one motionless and die colour of bronze, the other dazzling white
and lifting his arms, where die powerful muscles rolled slightly
under a skin that gleamed like satin. Jackson moved near with the
air of a man closing up to a chum in a tight place. I said
impressively, pointing to Hollis—

"He is young, but he is wise. Believe him!"

Karain bent his head: Hollis threw lighdy over it the dark-blue
ribbon and stepped back.

"Forget, and be at peace!" I cried.

Karain seemed to wake up from a dream. He said, "Ha!"
shook himself as if throwing off a burden. He looked round with
assurance. Some one on deck dragged off the skylight cover, and a
flood of light fell into die cabin. It was morning already.

"Time to go on deck," said Jackson.

Hollis put on a coat, and we went up, Karain leading.

The sun had risen beyond the hills, and dieir long shadows
stretched far over die bay in the pearly light. The air was clear,

stainless, and cool. I pointed at die curved line of yellow sands.

"He is not there," I said, emphatically, to Karain. "He waits no
more. He has departed for ever."

A shaft of bright hot rays darted into die bay between the
summits of two hills, and the water all round broke out as if by
magic into a dazzling sparkle.

"No! He is not diere waiting," said Karain, after a long look
over the beach. I do not hear him," he went on, slowly. "No!"

He turned to us.

"He has departed again— for ever!" he cried.

We assented vigorously, repeatedly, and without compunction.
The great thing was to impress him powerfully; to suggest absolute
safety— the end of all trouble. We did our best; and I hope we
affirmed our faith in die power of Hollis's charm efficiently
enough to put die matter beyond die shadow of a doubt. Our
voices rang around him joyously in the still air, and above his head
the sky, pellucid, pure, stainless, arched its tender blue from shore
to shore and over the bay, as if to envelop the water, the earth, and
the man in die caress of its light.

The anchor was up, the sails hung still, and half-a-dozen big
boats were seen sweeping over the bay to give us a tow out. The
paddlers in the first one diat came alongside lifted their heads and
saw their ruler standing amongst us. A low murmur of surprise
arose— dien a shout of greeting.

He left us, and seemed straightway to step into the glorious
splendour of his stage, to wrap himself in the illusion of un-
avoidable success. For a moment he stood erect, one foot over die
gangway, one hand on the hilt of his kriss, in a martial pose; and,
relieved from the fear of outer darkness, he held his head high, he
swept a serene look over his conquered foothold on the eardi. The
boats far off took up die cry of greeting; a great clamour rolled on
the water; die hills echoed it, and seemed to toss back at him the
words invoking long life and victories.

He descended into a canoe, and as soon as he was clear of the
side we gave him three cheers. They sounded faint and orderly
after die wild tumult of his loyal subjects, but it was die best we
could do. He stood up in the boat, lifted up both his arms, then
pointed to the infallible charm. We cheered again; and the Malays
in the boats stared— very much puzzled and impressed. I wonder
what they thought; what he thought; . . . what the reader thinks?

We towed out slowly. We saw him land and watch us from the
beach. A figure approached him humbly but openly— not at all like
a ghost with a grievance. We could see odier men running towards
him. Perhaps he had been missed? At any rate diere was a great
stir. A group formed itself rapidly near him, and he walked along
the sands, followed by a growing cortege, and kept nearly abreast
of die schooner. Widi our glasses we could see the blue ribbon on

his neck and a patch of white on his brown chest. The bay was
waking up. The smoke of morning fires stood in faint spirals
higher than the heads of palms; people moved between the
houses; a herd of buffaloes galloped clumsily across a green slope;
the slender figures of boys brandishing sticks appealed black and
leaping in the long grass; a coloured line of women, with water
bamboos on their heads, moved swaying through a thin grove of
fruit-trees. Karain stopped in the midst of his men and waved his
hand; then, detaching himself from the splendid group, walked
alone to the water's edge and waved his hand again. The schooner
passed out to sea between the steep headlands that shut in the bay,
and at the same instant Karain passed out of our life for ever.

But the memory remains. Some years afterwards I met
Jackson, in the Strand. He was magnificent as ever. His head was
high above the crowd. His beard was gold, his face red, his eyes
blue; he had a wide-brimmed grey hat and no collar or waistcoat;
he was inspiring; he had just come home— had landed that very
day! Our meeting caused an eddy in the current of humanity.
Hurried people would run against us, then walk round us, and
turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compress seven years
of life into seven exclamations; then, suddenly appeased, walked
sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jackson
gazed about him, like a man who looks for landmarks, then
stopped before Bland's window. He always had a passion for
firearms; so he stopped short and contemplated the row of
weapons, perfect and severe, drawn up in a line behind the black-
framed panes. I stood by his side. Suddenly he said—

"Do you remember Karain?"

I nodded.

"The sight of all this made me think of him," he went on, with
his face near the glass . . . and I could see another man, powerful
and bearded, peering at him intently from amongst the dark and
polished tubes that can cure so many illusions. "Yes; it made me
think of him," he continued, slowly. "I saw a paper this morning;
they are fighting over there again. He's sure to be in it. He will
make it hot for the caballeros. Well, good luck to him, poor devil!
He was perfectly stunning."

We walked on.

"I wonder whether the charm worked— you remember Hollis's
charm, of course. If it did . . . never was a sixpence wasted to
better advantage! Poor devil! I wonder whether he got rid of that
friend of his. Hope so . . . Do you know, I sometimes think that— "

I stood still and looked at him.

"Yes ... I mean, whether the thing was so, you know . . .
whether it really happened to him. . . . What do you think?"

"My dear chap," I cried, "you have been too long away from

home. What a question to ask! Only look at all this."

A watery gleam of sunshine flashed from the west, and went
out between two long lines of walls; and then the broken confusion
of roofs, the chimney-stacks, the gold letters sprawling over the
fronts of houses, die sombre polish of windows, stood resigned
and sullen under die falling gloom. The whole length of die street,
deep as a well and narrow like a corridor, was full of a sombre and
ceaseless stir. Our ears were filled by a headlong shuffle and beat
of rapid footsteps and an underlying rumour— a rumour vast, faint,
pulsating, as of panting breadis, of beating hearts, of gasping voices.
Innumerable eyes stared straight in front, feet moved hurriedly,
blank faces flowed, arms swung. Over all, a narrow ragged strip of
smoky sky wound about between the high roofs, extended and
motionless, like a soiled streamer flying above die rout of a mob.

"Ye-e-e-s," said Jackson, meditatively.

The big wheels of hansoms turned slowly along die edge of
side-walks; a pale-faced youdi strolled, overcome by weariness, by
the side of his stick and with the tails of his overcoat flapping gently
near his heels; horses stepped gingerly on the greasy pavement,
tossing their heads; two young girls passed by, talking vivaciously
and with shining eyes; a fine old fellow strutted, red-faced, stroking
a white moustache; and a line of yellow boards with blue letters on
them approached us slowly, tossing on high behind one another
like some queer WTeckage adrift upon a river of hats.

"Ye-e-es," repeated Jackson. His dear blue eyes looked about,
contemptuous, amused and hard, like the eyes of a boy. A clumsy
string of red, yellow, and green omnibuses rolled swaying,
monstrous and gaudy; two shabby children ran across die road; a
knot of dirty men with red neckerchiefs round their bare diroats
lurched along, discussing filthily; a ragged old man widi a face of
despair yelled horribly in the mud the name of a paper; while far
off, amongst the tossing heads of horses, the dull flash of
harnesses, die jumble of lustrous panels and roofs of carriages, we
could see a policeman, helmeted and dark, stretching out a rigid
arm at the crossing of the streets.

"Yes; I see it," said Jackson, slowly. "It is diere; it pants, it runs,
it rolls; it is strong and alive; it would smash you if you didn't look
out; but I'll be hanged if it is yet as real to me as . . . as die other
thing . . . say, Karain's story."

I think that, decidedly, he had been too long away from home.

The Idiots

WE were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We
passed at a smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on
each side of the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before
Ploumar die horse dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped
down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the
incline, stepping clumsily uphill by die side of the carriage, one
hand on die footboard, his eyes on die ground. After a while he
lifted his head, pointed up the road with the end of the whip, and
said—

"The idiot!"

The sun was shining violendy upon the undulating surface of
die land. The rises were topped by clumps of meagre trees, with
their branches showing high on the sky as if they had been
perched upon stilts. The small fields, cut up by hedges and stone
walls that zigzagged over die slopes, lay in rectangular patches of
vivid greens and yellows, resembling the unskillful daubs of a naive
picture. And the landscape was divided in two by die white streak
of a road stretching in long loops far away, like a river of dust
crawling out of the hills on its way to die sea.

"Here he is," said die driver, again.

In the long grass bordering the road a face glided past die
carriage at die level of die wheels as we drove slowly by. The im-
becile face was red, and die bullet head with close -cropped hair
seemed to lie alone, its chin in die dust. The body was lost in the
bushes growing thick along the bottom of the deep ditch.

It was a boy's face. He might have been sixteen, judging from
the size— perhaps less, perhaps more. Such creatures are forgotten
by time, and live untouched by years till deadi gathers them up
into its compassionate bosom; the faidiful deadi that never forgets
in the press of work die most insignificant of its children.

"All! there's anodier," said die man, with a certain satisfaction
in his tone, as if he had caught sight of something expected.

There was anodier. That one stood nearly in the middle of the
road in die blaze of sunshine at die end of his own short shadow.
And he stood with hands pushed into the opposite sleeves of his
long coat, his head sunk between die shoulders, all hunched up in
the flood of heat. From a distance he had the aspect of one
suffering from intense cold.

"Those are twins," explained die driver.

The idiot shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us
over his shoulder when we brushed past him. The glance was
unseeing and staring, a fascinated glance; but he did not turn to
look after us. Probably the image passed before die eyes widiout
leaving any trace on the misshapen brain of the creature. When we
had topped die ascent I looked over the hood. He stood in the

road just where we had left him.

The driver clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we
went down hill. The brake squeaked horribly from time to time.
At the foot he eased off the noisy mechanism and said, turning half
round on his box—

"We shall see some more of them by-and-by."

"More idiots? How many of them are there, then?" I asked.

"There's four of them— children of a farmer near Ploumar
here. . . . The parents are dead now," he added, after a while.
"The grandmother lives on the farm. In the daytime they knock
about on this road, and they come home at dusk along with the
cattle. . . . It's a good farm."

We saw the other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They
were dressed exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like
skirts. The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those
beings to howl at us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled
amongst the tough stalks of furze. Their cropped black heads stuck
out from die bright yellow wall of countless small blossoms. The
faces were purple with the strain of yelling; the voices sounded
blank and cracked like a mechanical imitation of old people's
voices; and suddenly ceased when we turned into a lane.

I saw them many times in my wandering about the country.
They lived on that road, drifting along its length here and there, ac-
cording to die inexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness.
They were an offence to the sunshine, a reproach to empty
heaven, a blight on the concentrated and purposeful vigour of the
wild landscape. In time the story of their parents shaped itself
before me out of the listless answers to my questions, out of the
indifferent words heard in wayside inns or on the very road those
idiots haunted. Some of it was told by an emaciated and skeptical
old fellow with a tremendous whip, while we trudged together over
the sands by the side of a two-wheeled cart loaded with dripping
seaweed. Then at other times other people confirmed and
completed the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidable
and simple, as they ahvays are, those disclosures of obscure trials
endured by ignorant hearts.

When he returned from his military service Jean-Pierre
Bacadou found the old people very much aged. He remarked with
pain that the w r ork of the farm was not satisfactorily done. The
father had not the energy of old days. The hands did not feel over
them the eye of the master. Jean-Pierre noted with sorrow that die
heap of manure in the courtyard before the only entrance to the
house was not so large as it should have been. The fences were out
of repair, and the cattle suffered from neglect. At home the
modier was practically bedridden, and the girls chattered loudly in
the big kitchen, unrebuked, from morning to night. He said to
himself: "We must change all this." He talked the matter over with

his father one evening when the rays of the setting sun entering the
yard between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with
luminous streaks. Over the manure heap floated a mist, opal-tinted
and odorous, and the marauding hens would stop in their
scratching to examine with a sudden glance of their round eye the
two men, both lean and tall, talking in hoarse tones. The old man,
all twisted with rheumatism and bowed with years of work, the
younger bony and straight, spoke without gestures in the
indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow. But before the sun
had set the father had submitted to the sensible arguments of the
son. "It is not for me that I am speaking," insisted Jean-Pierre. "It
is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used. I am not impatient
for myself." The old fellow nodded over his stick. "I dare say; I
dare say," he muttered. "You may be right. Do what you like. It's
the mother that will be pleased."

The mother was pleased with her daughter-in-law. Jean-Pierre
brought the two-wheeled spring-cart with a rush into the yard. The
grey horse galloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting
side by side, were jerked backwards and forwards by the up and
down motion of the shafts, in a manner regular and brusque. On
the road the distanced wedding guests straggled in pairs and
groups. The men advanced with heavy steps, swinging their idle
arms. They w r ere clad in town clothes: jackets cut with clumsy
smartness, hard black hats, immense boots, polished highly. Their
women all in simple black, with white caps and shawls of faded
tints folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightly by their side.
In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the biniou snored and
hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high his heavy
clogs. The sombre procession drifted in and out of the narrow
lanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and
hedgerows, scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right
and left. In the yard of Bacadou's farm the dark ribbon wound
itself up into a mass of men and women pushing at the door with
cries and greetings. The wedding dinner was remembered for
months. It was a splendid feast in the orchard. Farmers of
considerable means and excellent repute were to be found
sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as late as
the afternoon of the next day. All the countryside participated in
the happiness of Jean-Pierre. He remained sober, and, together
with his quiet wife, kept out of the w r ay, letting father and mother
reap their due of honour and thanks. But the next day he took
hold strongly, and the old folks felt a shadow— precursor of the
grave— fall upon them finally. The world is to the young.

When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the
house, for the mother of Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under
a heavy stone in the cemetery of Ploumar. On that day, for the first
time since his son's marriage, the elder Bacadou, neglected by the

cackling lot of strange women who thronged the kitchen, left in the
morning his seat under the mantel of the fireplace, and went into
the empty cow-house, shaking his white locks dismally. Grandsons
were all very well, but he wanted his soup at midday. When shown
the babies, he stared at diem with a fixed gaze, and muttered
something like: "It's too much." Whether he meant too much hap-
piness, or simply commented upon the number of his
descendants, it is impossible to say. He looked offended— as far as
his old wooden face could express anything; and for days
afterwards could be seen, almost any time of the day, sitting at the
gate, with his nose over his knees, a pipe between his gums, and
gathered up into a kind of raging concentrated sulkiness. Once he
spoke to his son, alluding to the newcomers with a groan: "They
will quarrel over the land." "Don't bother about that, father,"
answered Jean-Pierre, stolidly, and passed, bent double, towing a
recalcitrant cow over his shoulder.

He was happy, and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an
ethereal joy welcoming new souls to struggle, perchance to victory.
In fourteen years both boys would be a help; and, later on, Jean-
Pierre pictured two big sons striding over the land from patch to
patch, wringing tribute from the earth beloved and fruitful. Susan
was happy too, for she did not want to be spoken of as the
unfortunate woman, and now she had children no one could call
her that. Both herself and her husband had seen something of the
larger world— he during the time of his service; while she had spent
a year or so in Paris with a Breton family; but had been too home-
sick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country, set in
a barren circle of rocks and sands, where she had been born. She
thought that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but said
nothing to her husband, who was a republican, and hated the
"crows," as he called the ministers of religion. The christening was
a splendid affair. All the commune came to it, for the Bacadous
were rich and influential, and, now and then, did not mind the
expense. The grandfather had a new coat.

Some months afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had
been swept, and the door locked, Jean-Pierre, looking at the cot,
asked his wife: "What's the matter with those children?" And, as if
these words, spoken calmly, had been the portent of misfortune,
she answered with a loud wail that must have been heard across
the yard in the pig-sty; for the pigs (the Bacadous had the finest
pigs in the country) stirred and grunted complainingly in the night.
The husband went on grinding his bread and butter slowly, gazing
at the wall, the soup-plate smoking under his chin. He had re-
turned late from the market, where he had overheard (not for the
first time) whispers behind his back. He revolved the words in his
mind as he drove back. "Simple! Both of them. . . . Never any use!
. . . Well! May be, may be. One must see. Would ask his wife."

This was her answer. He felt like a blow on his chest, but said only:
"Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty!" She went out moaning, an
empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took up the light, and
moved slowly towards the cradle. They slept. He looked at them
sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily, and sat
down before his plate. When his wife returned he never looked
up, but swallowed a couple of spoonfuls noisily, and remarked, in
a dull manner—

"When they sleep they are like other people's children."

She sat down suddenly on a stool near by, and shook with a
silent tempest of sobs, unable to speak. He finished his meal, and
remained idly thrown back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the
black rafters of die ceiling. Before him the tallow candle flared red
and straight, sending up a slender thread of smoke. The light lay
on die rough, sunburnt skin of his throat; die sunk cheeks were
like patches of darkness, and his aspect was mournfully stolid, as if
he had ruminated with difficulty endless ideas. Then he said,
deliberately—

"We must see . . . consult people. Don't cry. . . . They won't
be all like that . . . surely! We must sleep now."

After the diird child, also a boy, was born, Jean-Pierre went
about his work with tense hopefulness. His lips seemed more
narrow, more tightly compressed than before; as if for fear of
letting the eardi he tilled hear die voice of hope that murmured
within his breast. He watched the child, stepping up to the cot widi
a heavy clang of sabots on the stone floor, and glanced in, along his
shoulder, with that indifference which is like a deformity of
peasant humanity. Like die earth they master and serve, diose
men, slow of eye and speech, do not show die inner fire; so diat, at
last, it becomes a question with them as with die eardi, what diere
is in the core: heat, violence, a force mysterious and terrible— or
nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and inert, cold and unfeeling,
ready to bear a crop of plants that sustain life or give death.

The mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise
expectant ears. Under the high hanging shelves supporting great
sides of bacon overhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace,
attentive to the pot swinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long
table where die field hands would sit down directly to their evening
meal. Her mind remained by the cradle, night and day on the
watch, to hope and suffer. That child, like die other two, never
smiled, never stretched its hands to her, never spoke; never had a
glance of recognition for her in its big black eyes, which could only
stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly to follow die
brilliance of a sun-ray slipping slowly along die floor. When the
men were at work she spent long days between her three idiot
children and the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular, and
immovable, with his feet near die warm ashes of the fire. The

feeble old fellow seemed to suspect that there was something
wrong with his grandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or
by die sense of proprieties, he attempted to nurse die youngest.
He took die boy up from the floor, clicked his tongue at him, and
essayed a shaky gallop of his bony knees. Then he looked closely
with his misty eyes at the child's face and deposited him down
gently on die floor again. And he sat, his lean shanks crossed,
nodding at the stream escaping from the cooking-pot widi a gaze
senile and worried.

Then mute affliction dwelt in Bacadou's farmhouse, sharing
the breatii and the bread of its inhabitants; and die priest of die
Ploumar parish had great cause for congratulation. He called upon
the rich landowner, the Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to
deliver himself with joyful unction of solemn platitudes about the
inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of die
curtained drawing-room, die little man, resembling a black bolster,
leaned towards a couch, his hat on his knees, and gesticulated with
a fat hand at die elongated, gracefully-flowing lines of die clear
Parisian toilette from within which die half-amused, half-bored
marquise listened with gracious languor. He was exulting and
humble, proud and awed. The impossible had come to pass. Jean-
Pierre Bacadou, die enraged republican farmer, had been to mass
last Sunday— had proposed to entertain die visiting priests at the
next festival of Ploumar! It was a triumph for die Church and for
the good cause. "I di ought I would come at once to tell Monsieur
le Marquis. I know how anxious he is for the welfare of our
country," declared the priest, wiping his face. He was asked to stay
to dinner.

The Chavanes returning diat evening, after seeing their guest to
the main gate of die park, discussed die matter while they strolled
in the moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue
of chestnuts. The marquis, a royalist of course, had been mayor of
the commune which includes Ploumar, the scattered hamlets of
the coast, and die stony islands diat fringe die yellow flatness of the
sands. He had felt his position insecure, for there was a strong
republican element in that part of the country; but now die
conversion of Jean-Pierre made him safe. He was very pleased.
"You have no idea how influential diose people are," he explained
to his wife. "Now, I am sure, die next communal election will go
all right. I shall be reelected." "Your ambition is perfectly in-
satiable, Charles," exclaimed die marquise, gaily. "But, ma chere
amie," argued die husband, seriously, "it's most important diat die
right man should be mayor this year, because of die elections to
the Chamber. If you diink it amuses me . . ."

Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame
Levaille was a woman of business, known and respected widiin a
radius of at least fifteen miles. Thick-set and stout, she was seen

about the country, on foot or in an acquaintance's cart, perpetually
moving, in spite of her fifty-eight years, in steady pursuit of
business. She had houses in all the hamlets, she worked quarries
of granite, she freighted coasters widi stone— even traded with the
Channel Islands. She was broad-cheeked, wide-eyed, persuasive in
speech: carrying her point with the placid and invincible obstinacy
of an old woman who knows her own mind. She very seldom slept
for two nights together in the same house; and the wayside inns
were die best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts. She had
either passed, or was expected to pass diere at six; or somebody,
coming in, had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her
diat evening. After the inns that command the roads, die churches
were die buildings she frequented most. Men of liberal opinions
would induce small children to run into sacred edifices to see
whether Madame Levaille was die re, and to tell her diat so-and-so
was in die road waiting to speak to her— about potatoes, or flour, or
stones, or houses; and she would curtail her devotions, come out
blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine; ready to discuss
business matters in a calm, sensible way across a table in the
kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a few days
several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow and
misfortune widi composed face and gentle tones. Jean-Pierre felt
the convictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast— not
by arguments, but by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it
over. There were diree of them. Three! All alike! Why? Such
things did not happen to everybody— to nobody he ever heard of.
One yet— it might pass. But diree! All diree. For ever useless, to be
fed while he lived and .... What would become of die land when
he died? This must be seen to. He would sacrifice his convictions.
One day he told his wife—

"See what your God will do for us. Pay for some masses."
Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned
on his heels and went out. But afterwards, when a black soutane
darkened his doorway, he did not object; even offered some cider
himself to die priest. He listened to the talk meekly; went to mass
between the two women; accomplished what die priest called "his
religious duties" at Easter. That morning he felt like a man who
had sold his soul. In die afternoon he fought ferociously widi an
old friend and neighbour who had remarked that die priests had
die best of it and were now going to eat the priest-eater. He came
home disheveled and bleeding, and happening to catch sight of his
children (diey were kept generally out of the way), cursed and
swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. Madame
Levaille sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that "It
will pass"; and taking up her diick umbrella, departed in haste to
see after a schooner she was going to load widi granite from her
quarry.

A year or so afterwards die girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre
heard of it in die fields, and was so upset by the news diat he sat
down on die boundary wall and remained there till the evening,
instead of going home as he was urged to do. A girl! He felt half
cheated. However, when he got home he was partly reconciled to
his fate. One could many her to a good fellow— not to a good for
nothing, but to a fellow widi some understanding and a good pair
of arms. Besides, die next may be a boy, he diought. Of course
they would be all right. His new credulity knew of no doubt. The
ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife. She was also
hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and Madame
Levaille was godmother. The child turned out an idiot too.

Then on market days Jean-Pierre was seen bargaining bitterly,
quarrelsome and greedy; then getting drunk with taciturn
earnestness; then driving home in die dusk at a rate fit for a
wedding, but with a face gloomy enough for a funeral. Sometimes
he would insist for his wife to come with him; and they would drive
in the early morning, shaking side by side on die narrow seat above
die helpless pig, diat, with tied legs, grunted a melancholy sigh at
every rut. The morning drives were silent; but in the evening,
coming home, Jean-Pierre, tipsy, was viciously muttering, and
growled at the confounded woman who could not rear children
diat were like anybody else's. Susan, holding on against the erratic
swayings of die cart, pretended not to hear. Once, as they were
driving dirough Ploumar, some obscure and drunken impulse
caused him to pull up sharply opposite the church. The moon
swam amongst light white clouds. The tombstones gleamed pale
under the fretted shadows of die trees in the churchyard. Even the
village dogs slept. Only the nightingales, awake, spun out die dirill
of their song above die silence of graves. Jean-Pierre said thickly to
his wife—

"What do you diink is there?"

He pointed his whip at the tower— in which the big dial of the
clock appeared high in the moonlight like a pallid face without
eyes— and getting out carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He
picked himself up and climbed one by one die few steps to the
iron gate of the churchyard. He put his face to the bars and called
out indistinctly—

"Hey die re! Come out!"

"Jean! Return! Return!" entreated his wife in low r tones.
He took no notice, and seemed to wait there. The song of
nightingales beat on all sides against die high walls of die church,
and flowed back between stone crosses and flat grey slabs,
engraved with words of hope and sorrow.

"Hey! Come out!" shouted Jean-Pierre loudly.

The nightingales ceased to sing.

"Nobody?" w r ent on Jean-Pierre. "Nobody diere. A swindle of

the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it Allez!
Houp!"

He shook tire gate with all his strength, and the iron bars
rattled with a frightful clanging, like a chain dragged over stone
steps. A dog near-by barked hurriedly. Jean-Pierre staggered back,
and after three successive dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very
quiet and still. He said to her with drunken severity—

"See? Nobody. I've been made a fool! Malheur! Somebody
will pay for it The next one I see near die house I will lay my whip
on . . . on the black spine ... I will. I don't want him in there . . .
he only helps the carrion crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. . . .
We will see if I can't have children like anybody else . . . now you
mind. . . . They won't be all ... all ... we see. ..."

She burst out through die fingers diat hid her face—

"Don't say diat, Jean; don't say that, my man!"

He struck her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his
hand and knocked her into die bottom of die cart, where she
crouched, thrown about lamentably by every jolt. He drove
furiously, standing up, brandishing his whip, shaking die reins over
the grey horse diat galloped ponderously, making the heavy
harness leap upon his broad quarters. The country rang clamorous
in die night with the irritated barking of farm dogs, diat followed
the rattle of wheels all along die road. A couple of belated
wayfarers had only just time to step into die ditch. At his own gate
he caught the post and was shot out of die cart head first. The
horse went on slowly to the door. At Susan's piercing cries the
farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead, but he was only
sleeping where he fell, and cursed his men, who hastened to him,
for disturbing his slumbers.

Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the
black contours of the hills; and die dead leaves danced in spiral
whirls under naked trees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid
them to rest in the hollows of bare valleys. And from morning till
night one could see all over die land black denuded boughs, the
boughs gnarled and twisted, as if contorted with pain, swaying sadly
between the wet clouds and die soaked eardi. The clear and gentle
streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at die
stones diat barred die way to die sea, with die fury of madness bent
upon suicide. From horizon to horizon die great road to the sands
lay between the hills in a dull glitter of empty curves, resembling an
unnavigable river of mud.

Jean-Pierre went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in
the drizzle, or striding on the crests of rises, lonely and high upon
the grey curtain of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along
the very edge of the universe. He looked at die black eardi, at die
eardi mute and promising, at the mysterious eardi doing its work
of life in death-like stillness under die veiled sorrow of die sky.

And it seemed to him that to a man worse than childless there was
no promise in the fertility of fields, that from him the earth
escaped, defied him, frowned at him like the clouds, sombre and
hurried above his head. Having to face alone his own fields, he felt
the inferiority of man who passes away before die clod diat
remains. Must he give up die hope of having by his side a son who
would look at die turned-up sods with a master's eye? A man diat
would think as he diought, that would feel as he felt; a man who
would be part of himself, and yet remain to trample masterfully on
that eardi when he was gone! He thought of some distant relations,
and felt savage enough to curse diem aloud. They! Never! He
turned homewards, going straight at die roof of his dwelling visible
between the enlaced skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over
die stile a cawing flock of birds setded slowly on the field; dropped
down behind his back, noiseless and fluttering, like flakes of soot.

That day Madame Levaille had gone early in the afternoon to
the house she had near Kervanion. She had to pay some of die
men who worked in her granite quarry there, and she went in good
time because her little house contained a shop where die workmen
could spend their wages widiout die trouble of going to town. The
house stood alone amongst rocks. A lane of mud and stones
ended at the door. The sea-winds coming ashore on Stonecutter's
point, fresh from die fierce turmoil of die waves, howled violently
at die unmoved heaps of black boulders holding up steadily short-
armed, high crosses against the tremendous rush of die invisible.
In the sweep of gales the sheltered dwelling stood in a calm res-
onant and disquieting, like die calm in die centre of a hurricane.
On stormy nights, when the tide was out, the bay of Fougere, fifty
feet below the house, resembled an immense black pit, from
which ascended mutterings and sighs as if die sands down diere
had been alive and complaining. At high tide the returning water
assaulted die ledges of rock in short rushes, ending in bursts of
livid light and columns of spray, diat flew inland, stinging to deadi
the grass of pastures.

The darkness came from die hills, flowed over the coast, put
out die red fires of sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the
retiring tide. The wind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened
sea and a devastated sky. The heavens above die house seemed to
be draped in black rags, held up here and diere by pins of fire.
Madame Levaille, for this evening die servant of her own
workmen, tried to induce them to depart. "An old woman like me
ought to be in bed at this late hour," she good-humouredly
repeated. The quariymen drank, asked for more. They shouted
over die table as if they had been talking across a field. At one end
four of them played cards, banging die wood with their hard
knuckles, and swearing at every lead. One sat with a lost gaze,
humming a bar of some song, which he repeated endlessly. Two

others, in a corner, were quarrelling confidentially and fiercely
over some woman, looking close into one another's eyes as if they
had wanted to tear them out, but speaking in whispers that
promised violence and murder discreetly, in a venomous sibilation
of subdued words. The atmosphere in there was thick enough to
slice with a knife. Three candles burning about the long room
glowed red and dull like sparks expiring in ashes.

The slight click of the iron latch was at that late hour as
unexpected and startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put
down a bottle she held above a liqueur glass; the players turned
their heads; die whispered quarrel ceased; only the singer, after
darting a glance at the door, went on humming with a stolid face.
Susan appeared in the doorway, stepped in, flung the door to, and
put her back against it, saying, half aloud—

"Mother!"

Madame Levaille, taking up the bottle again, said calmly:
"Here you are, my girl. What a state you are in!" The neck of the
bottle rang on the rim of the glass, for the old woman was startled,
and the idea that the farm had caught fire had entered her head.
She could think of no other cause for her daughter's appearance.

Susan, soaked and muddy, stared the whole length of the room
towards the men at the far end. Her mother asked— "What has
happened? God guard us from misfortune!"

Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille
stepped up to her daughter, took her by the arm, looked into her
face.

"In God's name," she said shakily, "what's the matter? You
have been rolling in mud. . . . Why did you come? . . . Where's
Jean?"

The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with
dull surprise. Madame Levaille jerked her daughter away from the
door, swung her round upon a seat close to the wall. Then she
turned fiercely to the men—

"Enough of this! Out you go— you others! I close."

One of them observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on
the seat: "She is— one may say— half dead."

Madame Levaille flung the door open. "Get out! March!" she
cried, shaking nervously.

They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside,
the two Lotharios broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to
soothe them, all talking at once. The noise went away up the lane
with the men, who staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating
with one another foolishly.

"Speak, Susan. What is it? Speak!" entreated Madame
Levaille, as soon as the door was shut.

Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at
the table. The old woman clapped her hands above her head, let

them drop, and stood looking at her daughter with disconsolate
eyes. Her husband had been "deranged in his head" for a few
years before he died, and now she began to suspect her daughter
was going mad. She asked, pressingly—

"Does Jean know where you are? Where is Jean?"

Susan pronounced with difficulty—

"He knows ... he is dead."

"What!" cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering
at her daughter, repeated three times: "What do you say? What do
you say? What do you say?" Susan sat dry-eyed and stony before
Madame Levaille, who contemplated her, feeling a strange sense
of inexplicable horror creep into the silence of the house. She had
hardly realised the news, further than to understand that she had
been brought in one short moment face to face with something
unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to ask for any
explanation. She thought: accident— terrible accident— blood to the
head— fell down a trap door in the loft. . . . She remained there,
distracted and mute, blinking her old eyes. Suddenly, Susan said—

"I have killed him."

For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but
with composed face. The next second she burst out into a shout—

"You miserable madwoman . . . they will cut your neck. ..."

She fancied the gendarmes entering the house, saying to her:
"We want your daughter; give her up:" the gendarmes with the
severe, hard faces of men on duty. She knew the brigadier well— an
old friend, familial' and respectful, saying heartily, "To your good
health, madame!" before lifting to his lips the small glass of
cognac— out of the special bottle she kept for friends. And now! . . .
She was losing her head. She rushed here and there, as if looking
for something urgently needed— gave that up, stood stock still in
the middle of the room, and screamed at her daughter—

"Why? Say! Say! Why?"

The other seemed to leap out of her strange apathy.

"Do you think I am made of stone?" she shouted back,
striding towards her mother.

"No! It's impossible. . . ." said Madame Levaille, in a
convinced tone.

"You go and see, mother," retorted Susan, looking at her with
blazing eyes. "There's no mercy in heaven— no justice. No! ... I
did not know. . . . Do you think I have no heart? Do you think I
have never heard people jeering at me, pitying me, wondering at
me? Do you know how some of them were calling me? The
mother of idiots— that was my nickname! And my children never
would know me, never speak to me. They would know nothing;
neither men— nor God. Haven't I prayed! But the Mother of God
herself would not hear me. A mother! . . . Who is accursed— I, or
the man who is dead? Eh? Tell me. I took care of myself. Do you

think I would defy the anger of God and have my house full of
those things— that are worse dian animals who know the hand that
feeds them? Who blasphemed in the night at the very church
door? Was it I? ... I only wept and prayed for mercy . . . and I
feel die curse at every moment of the day— I see it round me from
morning to night . . . I've got to keep them alive— to take care of
my misfortune and shame. And he would come. I begged him and
Heaven for mercy. . . . No! . . . Then we shall see. . . . He came
this evening. I diought to myself: 'Ah! again!' ... I had my long
scissors. I heard him shouting. ... I saw him near. ... I must-
must I? . . . Then take! . . . And I struck him in the throat above
the breast-bone. ... I never heard him even sigh. ... I left him
standing. ... It was a minute ago. How did I come here?"

Madame Levaille shivered. A wave of cold ran down her back,
down her fat arms under her tight sleeves, made her stamp gently
where she stood. Quivers ran over die broad cheeks, across die
thin lips, ran amongst the wrinkles at the corners of her steady old
eyes. She stammered—

"You wicked woman— you disgrace me. But there! You always
resembled your father. What do you think will become of you . . .
in the odier world? In this . . . Oh misery!"

She was very hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her
perspiring hands— and suddenly, starting in great haste, began to
look for her big shawl and umbrella, feverishly, never once
glancing at her daughter, who stood in the middle of die room
following her with a gaze distracted and cold.

"Notiiing worse than in this," said Susan.

Her mother, umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over die
floor, groaned profoundly.

"I must go to die priest," she burst out passionately. "I do not
know whether you even speak die truth! You are a horrible
woman. They will find you anywhere. You may stay here— or go.
There is no room for you in this world."

Ready now to depart, she yet wandered aimlessly about die
room, putting the bottles on the shelf, trying to fit with trembling
hands the covers on cardboard boxes. Whenever die real sense of
what she had heard emerged for a second from die haze of her
thoughts she would fancy that something had exploded in her
brain without, unfortunately, bursting her head to pieces— which
would have been a relief. She blew die candles out one by one
without knowing it, and was horribly starded by the darkness. She
fell on a bench and began to whimper. After a while she ceased,
and sat listening to the breadiing of her daughter, whom she could
hardly see, still and upright, giving no other sign of life. She was
becoming old rapidly at last, during those minutes. She spoke in
tones unsteady, cut about by die rattle of teeth, like one shaken by
a deadly cold fit of ague.

"I wish you had died little . I will never dare to show my old
head in die sunshine again. There are worse misfortunes tiian idiot
children. I wish you had been born to me simple— like your own. .

She saw die figure of her daughter pass before the faint and
livid clearness of a window. Then it appeared in the doorway for a
second, and die door swung to widi a clang. Madame Levaille, as if
awakened by the noise from a long nightmare, rushed out.

"Susan!" she shouted from the doorstep.

She heard a stone roll a long time down die declivity of the
rocky beach above die sands. She stepped forward cautiously, one
hand on the wall of the house, and peered down into die smooth
darkness of the empty bay. Once again she cried—

"Susan! You will kill yourself there." The stone had taken its
last leap in die dark, and she heard nodiing now. A sudden
thought seemed to strangle her, and she called no more. She
turned her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up the
lane towards Ploumar, stumbling along with sombre
determination, as if she had started on a desperate journey diat
w r ould last, perhaps, to the end of her life. A sullen and periodic
clamour of waves rolling over reefs followed her far inland
between die high hedges sheltering die gloomy solitude of the
fields.

Susan had run out, swerving sharp to the left at die door, and
on the edge of die slope crouched down behind a boulder. A dis-
lodged stone went on downwards, rattling as it leaped. When
Madame Levaille called out, Susan could have, by stretching her
hand, touched her mother's skirt, had she had the courage to
move a limb. She saw the old woman go away, and she remained
still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to die hard and rugged
surface of the rock. After a while a familiar face with fixed eyes and
an open moudi became visible in die intense obscurity amongst
the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The face
vanished, leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness of
stone heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down again to rest,
with her head against the rock, die face returned, came very near,
appeared eager to finish die speech that had been cut short by
deadi, only a moment ago. She scrambled quickly to her feet and
said: "Go away, or I will do it again." The thing wavered, swung to
the right, to the left. She moved this way and diat, stepped back,
fancied herself screaming at it, and was appalled by die unbroken
stillness of the night. She tottered on the brink, felt the steep
declivity under her feet, and rushed down blindly to save herself
from a headlong fall. The shingle seemed to w r ake up; the pebbles
began to roll before her, pursued her from above, raced down with
her on both sides, rolling past with an increasing clatter. In die
peace of the night the noise grew, deepening to a rumour, con-

tinuous and violent, as if die whole semicircle of die stony beach
had started to tumble down into the bay. Susan's feet hardly
touched die slope diat seemed to run down with her. At die
bottom she stumbled, shot forward, throwing her arms out, and
fell heavily. She jumped up at once and turned swiftly to look
back, her clenched hands full of sand she had clutched in her fall.
The face was diere, keeping its distance, visible in its own sheen
that made a pale stain in the night. She shouted, "Go away"— she
shouted at it with pain, with fear, widi all die rage of that useless
stab that could not keep him quiet, keep him out of her sight.
What did he want now? He was dead. Dead men have no
children. Would he never leave her alone? She shrieked at it-
waved her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel die breath of
parted lips, and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across the
level bottom of die bay.

She ran lighdy, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp
rocks that, when the bay is full, show above the glittering plain of
blue water like pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past
her, rushing to the land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the
distance, she could see somediing shining: a broad disc of light in
which narrow shadows pivoted round die centre like the spokes of
a wheel. She heard a voice calling, "Hey! There!" and answered
with a wild scream. So, he could call yet! He was calling after her
to stop. Never! . . . She tore dirough the night, past the starded
group of seaweed-gadierers who stood round dieir lantern
paralysed with fear at die uneardily screech coming from diat
fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforks staring
fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began
to pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimy
seaweed began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden
close to the man who carried die light. Somebody said: "The thing
ran out towards die sea." Another voice exclaimed: "And the sea is
coming back! Look at die spreading puddles. Do you hear— you
woman— there ! Get up !" Several voices cried togedier. "Yes, let us
be off! Let the accursed thing go to die sea!" They moved on,
keeping close round the light. Suddenly a man swore loudly. He
would go and see what was die matter. It had been a woman's
voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from women— but
his high form detached itself from the group and went off running.
They sent an unanimous call of scared voices after him. A word,
insulting and mocking, came back, thrown at them through
darkness. A woman moaned. An old man said gravely: "Such
things ought to be left alone." They went on slower, shuffling in
the yielding sand and whispering to one another diat Millot feared
nothing, having no religion, but diat it would end badly some day.

Susan met die incoming tide by the Raven islet and stopped,
panting, with her feet in the water. She heard die murmur and felt

the cold caress of the sea, and, calmer now, could see the sombre
and confused mass of the Raven on one side and on the other tire
long white streak of Molene sands that are left high above the dry
bottom of Fougere Bay at every ebb. She turned round and saw far
away, along the starred background of the sky, tire ragged outline
of the coast. Above it, nearly facing her, appeared tire tower of
Ploumar Church; a slender and tall pyramid shooting up dark and
pointed into tire clustered glitter of tire stars. She felt strangely
calm. She knew where she was, and began to remember how she
came there— and why. She peered into die smooth obscurity near
her. She was alone. There was nothing there; nothing near her,
either living or dead.

The tide was creeping in quietly, putting out long impatient
arms of strange rivulets drat ran towards die land between ridges of
sand. Under die night die pools grew bigger widi mysterious
rapidity, while die great sea, yet far off, diundered in a regular
rhythm along the indistinct line of the horizon. Susan splashed her
way back for a few yards without being able to get clear of the
water that murmured tenderly all around and, suddenly, widi a
spiteful gurgle, nearly took her off her feet. Her heart diumped
widi fear. This place was too big and too empty to die in. To-
morrow they would do with her what they liked. But before she
died she must tell them— tell die gendemen in black clothes that
diere are things no woman can bear. She must explain how it
happened. . . . She splashed through a pool, getting wet to the
waist, too preoccupied to care. . . . She must explain. "He came in
the same way as ever and said, just so: 'Do you think I am going to
leave the land to diose people from Morbihan that I do not know?
Do you? We shall see! Come along, you creature of mischance!'
And he put his arms out. Then, Messieurs, I said: 'Before God-
never!' And he said, striding at me with open palms: 'there is no
God to hold me! Do you understand, you useless carcass. I will do
what I like.' And he took me by the shoulders. Then I, Messieurs,
called to God for help, and next minute, while he was shaking me,
I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and,
by the candle-light, I saw die hollow of his throat. I cried: 'Let go!"
He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was! Then
I diought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!— and I struck in the hol-
low place. I never saw him fall. Never! Never! . . . Never saw him
fall. . . . The old father never turned his head. He is deaf and
childish, gendemen. . . . Nobody saw him fall. I ran out . . .
Nobody saw. ..."

She had been scrambling amongst the boulders of the Raven
and now found herself, all out of breadi, standing amongst die
heavy shadows of die rocky islet. The Raven is connected with the
main land by a natural pier of immense and slippery stones. She
intended to return home that way. Was he still standing there? At

home. Home! Four idiots and a corpse. She must go back and
explain. Anybody would understand. . . .

Below her the night or the sea seemed to pronounce
distinctly—

"Alia! I see you at last!"

She started, slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise,
listened, terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden
clogs. It stopped.

"Where die devil did you pass?" said an invisible man,
hoarsely.

She held her breadi. She recognised the voice. She had not
seen him fall. Was he pursuing her diere dead, or perhaps . . .
alive?

She lost her head. She cried from die crevice where she lay
huddled, "Never, never!"

"All! You are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my
beauty, I must see how you look after all diis. You wait. . .

Millot was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out of
pure satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down that fly-
by-night. "As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took an
old African soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was
curious. Who the devil was she?"

Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead
man. There was no escape. What a noise he made amongst die
stones. . . . She saw his head rise up, then the shoulders. He was
tall— her own man! His long arms waved about, and it was his own
voice sounding a little strange . . . because of die scissors. She
scrambled out quickly, rushed to die edge of the causeway, and
turned round. The man stood still on a high stone, detaching him-
self in dead black on die glitter of die sky.

"Where are you going to?" he called roughly.

She answered, "Home!" and watched him intensely. He made
a striding, clumsy leap on to another boulder, and stopped again,
balancing himself, then said—

"Ha! ha! Well, I am going with you. It's die least I can do. Ha!
ha! ha!"

She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals
that burned deep into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of
making out die well-known features. Below her the sea lapped
softly against the rock with a splash, continuous and gentle. The
man said, advancing another step— "I am coming for you. What do
you think?"

She trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no
peace, no hope. She looked round despairingly. Suddenly die
whole shadowy coast, the blurred islets, die heaven itself, swayed
about twice, then came to a rest. She closed her eyes and shouted—

"Can't you wait till I am dead!"

She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued
her in this world, unappeased even by death in its longing for an
heir diat would be like other people's children.

"Hey! What?" said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He
was saying to himself: "Look out! Some lunatic. An accident
happens soon."

She went on, wildly—

"I want to live. To live alone— for a week— for a day. I must
explain to diem. ... I would tear you to pieces, I would kill you
twenty times over radier dian let you touch me while I live. How
many times must I kill you— you blasphemer! Satan sends you
here. I am damned too!"

"Come," said Millot, alarmed and conciliating. "I am perfectly
alive! . . . Oh, my God!"

She had screamed, "Alive!" and at once vanished before his
eyes, as if the islet itself had swerved aside from under her feet.
Millot rushed forward, and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far
below he saw die water whitened by her struggles, and heard one
shrill cry for help that seemed to dart upwards along the
perpendicular face of the rock, and soar past, straight into the high
and impassive heaven.

Madame Levaille sat, dry-eyed, on die short grass of die hill
side, widi her thick legs stretched out, and her old feet turned up
in their black clodi shoes. Her clogs stood near by, and furdier off
the umbrella lay on die widiered sward like a weapon dropped
from the grasp of a vanquished warrior. The Marquis of Chavanes,
on horseback, one gloved hand on thigh, looked down at her as
she got up laboriously, with groans. On the narrow track of die
seaweed-carts four men were carrying inland Susan's body on a
hand-barrow, while several others straggled listlessly behind.
Madame Levaille looked after the procession. "Yes, Monsieur le
Marquis," she said dispassionately, in her usual calm tone of a
reasonable old woman. "There are unfortunate people on this
eardi. I had only one child. Only one! And diey won't bury her in
consecrated ground!"

Her eyes filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled
down the broad cheeks. She pulled die shawl close about her. The
Marquis leaned slightly over in his saddle, and said—

"It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the
Cure. She was unquestionably insane, and the fall was accidental.
Millot says so distinctly. Good-day, Madame."

And he trotted off, diinking to himself: I must get diis old
woman appointed guardian of those idiots, and administrator of
die farm. It would be much better dian having here one of those
odier Bacadous, probably a red republican, corrupting my
commune.

An Outpost of Progress

I

THERE were two white men in charge of the trading station.
Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall,
with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair
of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger,
who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for
some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the
name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings
about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling
accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cher-
ished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife
was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three
children rolled about in sunshine before die door of his low, shed-
like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised die two
white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-
grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads,
cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and odier trade goods it
contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola's hut, diere was
only one large building in the cleared ground of die station. It was
built neady of reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There
were diree rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living-room,
and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two
were die bedrooms for die white men. Each had a bedstead and a
mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with die
belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing
apparel, old boots; all the diings dirty, and all the things broken,
that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also
another dwelling-place some distance away from die buildings. In
it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man
who had seen die beginning of all this; who had planned and had
watched the construction of this outpost of progress. He had been,
at home, an unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on
an empty stomach, had gone out there through high protections.
He had been die first chief of that station. Makola had watched the
energetic artist die of fever in die just finished house with his usual
kind of "I told you so" indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt
alone with his family, his account books, and the Evil Spirit that
rules die lands under the equator. He got on very well with his
god. Perhaps he had propitiated him by a promise of more white
men to play with, by and by. At any rate die director of die Great
Trading Company, coming up in a steamer that resembled an
enormous sardine box widi a flat-roofed shed erected on it, found
the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly diligent.
The director had the cross put up over die first agent's grave, and

appointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as second in
charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at
times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humour. He made
a speech to Kayerts and Carlier, pointing out to them the
promising aspect of their station. The nearest trading-post was
about three hundred miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity
for them to distinguish themselves and to earn percentages on the
trade. This appointment was a favour done to beginners. Kayerts
was moved almost to tears by his director's kindness. He would,
he said, by doing his best, try to justify the flattering confidence,
&c, &c. Kayerts had been in the Administration of the
Telegraphs, and knew how to express himself correctly. Carlier, an
ex-non-commissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed
from harm by several European Powers, was less impressed. If
there were commissions to get, so much the better; and, trailing a
sulky glance over the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that
seemed to cut off the station from the rest of the world, he
muttered between his teeth, "We shall see, very soon."

Next day, some bales of cotton goods and a few cases of
provisions having been thrown on shore, the sardine -box steamer
went off, not to return for another six months. On the deck the
director touched his cap to the two agents, who stood on the bank
waving their hats, and turning to an old servant of the Company on
his passage to headquarters, said, "Look at those two imbeciles.
They must be mad at home to send me such specimens. I told
those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses
and fences, and construct a landing-stage. I bet nothing will be
done! They won't know how to begin. I always thought the station
on this river useless, and they just fit the station!"

"They will form themselves there," said the old stager with a
quiet smile.

"At any rate, I am rid of them for six months," retorted the
director.

The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then,
ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the
station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very
short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men,
under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as
they were to the subtle influences of surroundings, they felt
themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face
the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more
incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it
contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable
individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the
high organisation of civilised crowds. Few men realise that their
life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their
audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of

their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence;
the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant
thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the
crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions
and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But
the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature
and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into die
heart. To die sentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the clear
perception of the loneliness of one's thoughts, of one's
sensations— to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is
added die affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a
suggestion of tilings vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose
discomposing intrusion excites die imagination and tries the
civilised nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.

Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one
another as children do in die dark; and they had the same, not al-
together unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be
imaginary. They chatted persistently in familiar tones. "Our station
is prettily situated," said one. The other assented with enthusiasm,
enlarging volubly on the beauties of the situation. Then they
passed near the grave. "Poor devil!" said Kayerts. "He died of
fever, didn't he?" muttered Carlier, stopping short. "Why,"
retorted Kayerts, with indignation, "I've been told that die fellow
exposed himself recklessly to die sun. The climate here, everybody
says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of
the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier? I am chief here, and my orders
are that you should not expose yourself to the sun!" He assumed
his superiority jocularly, but his meaning was serious. The idea that
he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier and remain alone, gave
him an inward shiver. He felt suddenly that this Carlier was more
precious to him here, in the centre of Africa, than a brother could
be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of die tiling,
made a military salute and answered in a brisk tone, "Your orders
shall be attended to, chief!" Then he burst out laughing, slapped
Kayerts on the back, and shouted, "We shall let life run easily
here! Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring.
This country has its good points, after all!" They both laughed
loudly while Carlier thought: That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and
unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a
man I respect. . . . Before they reached the verandah of their
house they called one another "my dear fellow."

The first day they were very active, pottering about with
hammers and nails and red calico, to put up curtains, make their
house habitable and pretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to
their new life. For them an impossible task. To grapple effectually
with even purely material problems requires more serenity of
mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No

two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle.
Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs,
had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent
thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it
under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being
machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men with
pens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they
were like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years,
do not know what use to make of their freedom. They did not
know what use to make of their faculties, being both, through want
of practice, incapable of independent thought.

At the end of two months Kayerts often would say, "If it was
not for my Melie, you wouldn't catch me here." Melie was his
daughter. He had thrown up his post in the Administration of the
Telegraphs, though he had been for seventeen years perfectly
happy there, to earn a dowry for his girl. His wife was dead, and
the child was being brought up by his sisters. He regretted the
streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friends of many years; all the
things he used to see, day after day; all the thoughts suggested by
familiar things— the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing
of a Government clerk; he regretted all the gossip, the small
enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes of Government
offices. "If I had had a decent brother-in-law," Carlier would
remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here." He had left
the army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his
laziness and impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had
made superhuman efforts to procure him an appointment in the
Company as a second-class agent. Having not a penny in the
world, he was compelled to accept this means of livelihood as soon
as it became quite clear to him that there was nothing more to
squeeze out of his relations. He, like Kayerts, regretted his old life.
He regretted the clink of sabre and spurs on a fine afternoon, the
barrack-room witticisms, the girls of garrison towns; but, besides,
he had also a sense of grievance. He was evidently a much ill-used
man. This made him moody, at times. But the two men got on
well together in the fellowship of their stupidity and laziness.
Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the
sense of the idleness for which they were paid. And in time they
came to feel something resembling affection for one another.

They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what
came in contact with them (and of that only imperfectly), but
unable to see the general aspect of tilings. The river, the forest, all
the great land throbbing with life, were like a great emptiness. Even
the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things
appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected
and aimless kind of way. The river seemed to come from nowhere
and flow no-whither. It flowed through a void. Out of that void, at

times, came canoes, and men with spears in their hands would
suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They were naked, glossy
black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brass wire, per-
fect of limb. They made an uncouth babbling noise when they
spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out
of their starded, never-resting eyes. Those warriors would squat in
long rows, four or more deep, before the verandah, while their
chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an elephant tusk.
Kayerts sat on his chair and looked down on the proceedings,
understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round blue
eyes, called out to Carlier, "Here, look! look at that fellow there—
and that other one, to the left. Did you ever see such a face? Oh,
the funny brute!"

Carlier, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would
sw r agger up twirling his moustaches, and, surveying the warriors
with haughty indulgence, would say—

"Fine animals. Brought any bone? Yes? It's not any too soon.
Look at the muscles of that fellow— third from the end. I wouldn't
care to get a punch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no
good below the knee. Couldn't make cavalry men of them." And
after glancing down complacently at his own shanks, he always
concluded: "Pah! Don't they stink! You, Makola! Take that herd
over to the fetish" (the storehouse was in every station called the
fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilisation it contained)
"and give them up some of the rubbish you keep there. Fd rather
see it full of bone than full of rags."

Kayerts approved.

"Yes, yes! Go and finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I
will come round when you are ready, to weigh the tusk. We must
be careful." Then, turning to his companion: "This is the tribe that
lives down the river; they are rather aromatic. I remember, they
had been once before here. D'ye hear that row? What a fellow has
got to put up with in this dog of a country! My head is split."

Such profitable visits were rare. For days the two pioneers of
trade and progress would look on their empty courtyard in the
vibrating brilliance of vertical sunshine. Below the high bank, the
silent river flowed on glittering and steady. On the sands in the
middle of the stream, hippos and alligators sunned themselves side
by side. And stretching away in all directions, surrounding the
insignificant cleared spot of the trading post, immense forests,
hiding fateful complications of fantastic life, lay in the eloquent
silence of mute greatness. The two men understood nothing, cared
for nothing but for the passage of days that separated them from
the steamer's return. Their predecessor had left some torn books.
They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as they had never read
anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused.
Then during long days there were interminable and silly

discussions about plots and personages. In die centre of Africa
they made the acquaintance of Richelieu and of d'Artagnan, of
Hawk's Eye and of Fadier Goriot, and of many other people. All
these imaginary personages became subjects for gossip as if they
had been living friends. They discounted dieir virtues, suspected
their motives, decried dieir successes; were scandalised at their
duplicity or were doubtful about dieir courage. The accounts of
crimes filled diem widi indignation, while tender or pathetic
passages moved them deeply. Carlier cleared his diroat and said in
a soldierly voice, "What nonsense!" Kayerts, his round eyes
suffused widi tears, his fat cheeks quivering, rubbed his bald head,
and declared, "This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were
such clever fellows in die world." They also found some old copies
of a home paper. That print discussed what it was pleased to call
"Our Colonial Expansion" in high-flown language. It spoke much
of the rights and duties of civilisation, of the sacredness of the
civilising work, and extolled the merits of those who went about
bringing light, and faith, and commerce to the dark places of the
eardi. Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to diink
better of themselves. Carlier said one evening, waving his hand
about, "In a hundred years, diere will be perhaps a town here.
Quays, and warehouses, and barracks, and— and— billiard-rooms.
Civilisation, my boy, and virtue— and all. And then, chaps will read
tiiat two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, were die first civilised
men to live in this very spot!" Kayerts nodded, "Yes, it is a
consolation to think of tiiat." They seemed to forget their dead
predecessor; but, early one day, Carlier went out and replanted the
cross firmly. "It used to make me squint whenever I walked that
way," he explained to Kayerts over die morning coffee. "It made
me squint, leaning over so much. So I just planted it upright. And
solid, I promise you! I suspended myself widi both hands to the
cross-piece. Not a move. Oh, I did that properly."

At times Gobila came to see them. Gobila was die chief of die
neighbouring villages. He was a grey-headed savage, thin and
black, widi a white clodi round his loins and a mangy pandier skin
hanging over his back. He came up with long strides of his
skeleton legs, swinging a staff as tall as himself, and, entering the
common room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left
of the door. There he sat, watching Kayerts, and now and then
making a speech which die other did not understand. Kayerts,
without interrupting his occupation, would from time to time say in
a friendly manner: "How goes it, you old image?" and diey would
smile at one anodier. The two whites had a liking for tiiat old and
incomprehensible creature, and called him Fadier Gobila.
Gobila's manner was paternal, and he seemed really to love all
white men. They all appeared to him very young, indistinguishably
alike (except for stature), and he knew tiiat diey were all brodiers,

and also immortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white
man whom he knew intimately, did not disturb this belief, because
he was firmly convinced that the white stranger had pretended to
die and got himself buried for some mysterious purpose of his
own, into which it was useless to inquire. Perhaps it was his way of
going home to his own country? At any rate, these were his
brothers, and he transferred his absurd affection to them. They
returned it in a way. Carlier slapped him on the back, and reck-
lessly struck off matches for his amusement. Kayerts was always
ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they
behaved just like that other white creature that had hidden itself in
a hole in the ground. Gobila considered them attentively. Perhaps
they were the same being with the other— or one of them was. He
couldn't decide— clear up that mystery; but he remained always
very friendly. In consequence of that friendship the women of
Gobila's village walked in single file through the reedy grass,
bringing every morning to the station, fowls, and sweet potatoes,
and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The Company never
provisions the stations fully, and the agents required those local
supplies to live. They had them through the good-will of Gobila,
and lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and
the other nursed him with gentle devotion. They did not think
much of it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for
the worse. Carlier was hollow-eyed and irritable. Kayerts showed a
drawn, flabby face above the rotundity of his stomach, which gave
him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not
notice the change that took place gradually in their appearance,
and also in their dispositions.

Five months passed in that way.

Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their
chairs under the verandah, talked about the approaching visit of
the steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest and
advanced towards the station. They were strangers to that part of
the country. They were tall, slight, draped classically from neck to
heel in blue fringed cloths, and carried percussion muskets over
their bare right shoulders. Makola showed signs of excitement, and
ran out of the storehouse (where he spent all his days) to meet
these visitors. They came into the courtyard and looked about
them with steady, scornful glances. Their leader, a powerful and
determined-looking negro with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of
the verandah and made a long speech. He gesticulated much, and
ceased very suddenly.

There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the
long sentences he used, that startled the two whites. It was like a
reminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resembling
the speech of civilised men. It sounded like one of those
impossible languages which sometimes we hear in our dreams.

"What lingo is that?" said die amazed Carlier. "In die first
moment I fancied the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, it
is a different kind of gibberish to what we ever heard."

"Yes," replied Kayerts. "Hey, Makola, what does he say?
Where do they come from? Who are they?"

But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks,
answered hurriedly, "I don't know. They come from very far.
Perhaps Mrs. Price will understand. They are perhaps bad men."

The leader, after waiting for a while, said somediing sharply to
Makola, who shook his head. Then die man, after looking round,
noticed Makola's hut and walked over diere. The next moment
Mrs. Makola was heard speaking with great volubility. The other
strangers— they were six in all— strolled about widi an air of ease,
put dieir heads dirough die door of die store-room, congregated
round die grave, pointed understandingly at die cross, and
generally made themselves at home.

"I don't like those chaps— and, I say, Kayerts, diey must be
from die coast; they've got firearms," observed the sagacious
Carlier.

Kayerts also did not like those chaps. They bodi, for die first
time, became aware diat they lived in conditions where die unusual
may be dangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside
of diemselves to stand between them and the unusual. They
became uneasy, went in and loaded their revolvers. Kayerts said,
"We must order Makola to tell them to go away before dark."

The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal
prepared for diem by Mrs. Makola. The immense woman was
excited, and talked much with the visitors. She rattled away shrilly,
pointing here and pointing there at the forests and at die river. Ma-
kola sat apart and watched. At times he got up and whispered to
his wife. He accompanied the strangers across die ravine at die
back of die station-ground, and returned slowly looking very
thoughtful. When questioned by die white men he was very
strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten
French— seemed to have forgotten how to speak altogether.
Kayerts and Carlier agreed diat die nigger had had too much palm
wine.

There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the
evening everything seemed so quiet and peaceful diat they retired
as usual. All night they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the
villages. A deep, rapid roll near by would be followed by another
far off— dien all ceased. Soon short appeals would rattle out here
and there, dien all mingle together, increase, become vigorous and
sustained, would spread out over die forest, roll dirough the night,
unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if die whole land had
been one immense drum booming out steadily an appeal to
heaven. And dirough die deep and tremendous noise sudden yells

that resembled snatches of songs from a mad-house darted shrill
and high in discordant jets of sound which seemed to rush far
above the earth and drive all peace from under the stars.

Carlier and Kayerts slept badly. They both thought they had
heard shots fired during the night— but they could not agree as to
the direction. In the morning Makola was gone somewhere. He
returned about noon with one of yesterday's strangers, and eluded
all Kayerts' attempts to close with him: had become deaf appar-
ently. Kayerts wondered. Carlier, who had been fishing off the
bank, came back and remarked while he showed his catch, "The
niggers seem to be in a deuce of a stir; I wonder what's up. I saw
about fifteen canoes cross the river during the two hours I was
there fishing." Kayerts, worried, said, "Isn't this Makola very queer
to-day?" Carlier advised, "Keep all our men together in case of
some trouble."

II

THERE were ten station men who had been left by the
Director. Those fellows, having engaged themselves to the Com-
pany for six months (without having any idea of a month in
particular and only a very faint notion of time in general) , had been
serving the cause of progress for upwards of two years. Belonging
to a tribe from a very distant part of this land of darkness and
sorrow, they did not run away, naturally supposing that as
wandering strangers they would be killed by the inhabitants of the
country; in which they were right. They lived in straw huts on the
slope of a ravine overgrown with reedy grass, just behind the
station buildings. They were not happy, regretting the festive
incantations, the sorceries, die human sacrifices of their own land;
where they also had parents, brothers, sisters, admired chiefs,
respected magicians, loved friends, and odier ties supposed
generally to be human. Besides, the rice rations served out by the
Company did not agree with them, being a food unknown to their
land, and to which they could not get used. Consequently they
were unheal thy and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe
they would have made up their minds to die— for nothing is easier
to certain savages than suicide— and so have escaped from the puz-
zling difficulties of existence. But belonging, as they did, to a
warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, and went on
stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very little
work, and had lost their splendid physique. Carlier and Kayerts
doctored them assiduously without being able to bring them back
into condition again. They were mustered every morning and told
off to different tasks— grass-cutting, fence-building, tree-felling, &c,
&c, which no power on earth could induce them to execute

efficiently. The two whites had practically very little control over
them.

In the afternoon Makola came over to the big house and found
Kayerts watching three heavy columns of smoke rising above die
forests. "What is diat?" asked Kayerts. "Some villages burn,"
answered Makola, who seemed to have regained his wits. Then he
said abruptly: "We have got very little ivory; bad six months'
trading. Do you like get a little more ivory?"

"Yes," said Kayerts eagerly. He thought of percentages which
were low.

"Those men who came yesterday are traders from Loanda
who have got more ivory dian they can carry home. Shall I buy? I
know dieir camp."

"Certainly," said Kayerts. "What are those traders?"

"Bad fellows," said Makola indifferendy. "They fight widi
people, and catch women and children. They are bad men, and
got guns. There is a great disturbance in die country. Do you want
ivory?

"Yes," said Kayerts. Makola said nodiing for a while. Then:
"Those workmen of ours are no good at all," he muttered, looking
round. "Station in very bad order, sir. Director will growl. Better
get a fine lot of ivory, then he say nothing."

"I can't help it; die men won't work," said Kayerts. "When will
you get that ivory?"

"Very soon," said Makola. "Perhaps to-night. You leave it to
me, and keep indoors, sir. I think you had better give some palm
wine to our men to make a dance this evening. Enjoy themselves.
Work better to-morrow. There's plenty palm wine— gone a little
sour."

Kayerts said yes, and Makola, widi his own hands, carried die
big calabashes to die door of his hut. They stood there till die
evening, and Mrs. Makola looked into every one. The men got
them at sunset. When Kayerts and Carlier retired, a big bonfire
was flaring before the men's huts. They could hear their shouts
and drumming. Some men from Gobila's village had joined die
station hands, and the entertainment was a great success.

In the middle of the night, Carlier waking suddenly, heard a
man shout loudly; then a shot was fired. Only one. Carlier ran out
and met Kayerts on die verandah. They were both startled. As
they went across die yard to call Makola, they saw shadows moving
in die night. One of them cried, "Don't shoot! It's me, Price."
Then Makola appealed close to them. "Go back, go back, please,"
he urged, "you spoil all." "There are strange men about," said
Carlier. "Never mind; I know," said Makola. Then he whispered,
"All right. Bring ivory. Say nothing! I know my business." The two
white men reluctantly went back to die house, but did not sleep.
They heard footsteps, whispers, some groans. It seemed as if a lot

of men came in, dumped heavy things on die ground, squabbled a
long dine, dien went away. They lay on dieir hard beds and
thought: "This Makola is invaluable." In die morning Carlier came
out, very sleepy, and pulled at the cord of die big bell. The station
hands mustered ever}' morning to the sound of die bell. That
morning nobody came. Kayerts turned out also, yawning. Across
the yard they saw Makola come out of his hut, a tin basin of soapy
water in his hand. Makola, a civilised nigger, was very neat in his
person. He threw die soapsuds skillfully over a wretched little
yellow cur he had, dien turning his face to the agent's house, he
shouted from the distance, "All die men gone last night!" They
heard him plainly, but in dieir surprise diey both yelled out
together: "What!" Then diey stared at one another. "We are in a
proper fix now," growled Carlier. "It's incredible!" muttered
Kayerts. "I will go to the huts and see," said Carlier, striding off.
Makola coming up found Kayerts standing alone.

"I can hardly believe it," said Kayerts tearfully. "We took care
of them as if they had been our children."

"They went with die coast people," said Makola after a
moment of hesitation.

"What do I care with whom they went— the ungrateful brutes!"
exclaimed die other. Then with sudden suspicion, and looking
hard at Makola, he added: "What do you know about it?"

Makola moved his shoulders, looking down on the ground.
"What do I know? I think only. Will you come and look at die
ivory I've got there? It is a fine lot. You never saw such."

He moved towards die store. Kayerts followed him
mechanically, thinking about the incredible desertion of the men.
On die ground before the door of the fetish lay six splendid tusks.

"What did you give for it?" asked Kayerts, after surveying the
lot with satisfaction.

"No regular trade," said Makola. "They brought the ivory and
gave it to me. I told them to take what diey most wanted in the
station. It is a beautiful lot. No station can show such tusks. Those
traders wanted carriers badly, and our men were no good here. No
trade, no entry in books; all correct."

Kayerts nearly burst with indignation. "Why!" he shouted, "I
believe you have sold our men for diese tusks!" Makola stood
impassive and silent. "I— I— will— I," stuttered Kayerts. "You fiend!"
he yelled out.

"I did die best for you and die Company," said Makola
imperturbably. "Why you shout so much? Look at this tusk."

"I dismiss you! I will report you— I won't look at die tusk. I
forbid you to touch them. I order you to throw them into the river.
You— you!"

"You very red, Mr. Kayerts. If you are so irritable in die sun,
you will get fever and die— like die first chief! " pronounced Makola

impressively.

They stood still, contemplating one another with intense eyes,
as if they had been looking with effort across immense distances.
Kayerts shivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his
words seemed to Kayerts full of ominous menace! He turned
sharply and went away to the house. Makola retired into the
bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store,
looked very large and valuable in the sunshine.

Carlier came back on the verandah. "They're all gone, hey?"
asked Kayerts from the far end of the common room in a muffled
voice. "You did not find anybody?"

"Oh, yes," said Carlier, "I found one of Gobila's people lying
dead before the huts— shot through the body. We heard that shot
last night."

Kayerts came out quickly. He found his companion staring
grimly over the yard at the tusks, away by the store. They both sat
in silence for a while. Then Kayerts related his conversation with
Makola. Carlier said nothing. At the midday meal they ate very
little. They hardly exchanged a word that day. A great silence
seemed to lie heavily over the station and press on their lips.
Makola did not open the store; he spent the day playing with his
children. He lay full-length on a mat outside his door, and the
youngsters sat on his chest and clambered all over him. It was a
touching picture. Mrs. Makola was busy cooking all day as usual.
The white men made a somewhat better meal in the evening.
Afterwards, Carlier smoking his pipe strolled over to the store; he
stood for a long time over the tusks, touched one or two with his
foot, even tried to lift the largest one by its small end. He came
back to his chief, who had not stirred from the verandah, threw
himself in the chair and said—

"I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily
after drinking all that palm wine you've allowed Makola to give
them. A put-up job! See? The worst is, some of Gobila's people
were there, and got carried off too, no doubt. The least drunk
w r oke up, and got shot for his sobriety. This is a funny country.
What will you do now?"

"We can't touch it, of course," said Kayerts.

"Of course not," assented Carlier.

"Slavery is an awful tiling," stammered out Kayerts in an
unsteady voice.

"Frightful— the sufferings," grunted Carlier, with conviction.

They believed their w r ords. Everybody shows a respectful
deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But
about feelings people really know r nothing. We talk with
indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty,
crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real
beyond the words. Nobody knows what suffering or sacrifice

mean— except, perhaps, the victims of the mysterious purpose of
these illusions.

Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard
the big scales used for weighing ivory. By and by Carlier said:
"What's that filthy scoundrel up to?" and lounged out into the
yard. Kayerts followed. They stood by watching. Makola took no
notice. When the balance was swung true, he tried to lift a tusk
into the scale. It was too heavy. He looked up helplessly without a
word, and for a minute they stood round that balance as mute and
still as three statues. Suddenly Carlier said: "Catch hold of the
other end, Makola— you beast!" and together they swung the tusk
up. Kayerts trembled in every limb. He muttered, "I say! O! I say!"
and putting his hand in his pocket found there a dirty bit of paper
and the stump of a pencil. He turned his back on the others, as if
about to do something tricky, and noted stealthily the weights
which Carlier shouted out to him with unnecessary loudness.
When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun's very
strong here for the tusks." Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless
tone: "I say, chief, I might just as well give him a lift with this lot
into the store."

As they were going back to the house Kayerts observed with a
sigh: "It had to be done." And Carlier said: "It's deplorable, but,
the men being Company's men, die ivory is Company's ivory. We
must look after it." "I will report to the Director, of course," said
Kayerts. "Of course; let him decide," approved Carlier.

At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time
to time. Whenever they mentioned Makola's name they always
added to it an opprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience.
Makola gave himself a half-holiday, and bathed his children in the
river. No one from Gobila's villages came near the station that day.
No one came the next day, and the next, nor for a whole week.
Gobila's people might have all been dead and buried for any sign
of life they gave. But they were only mourning for those they had
lost by the witchcraft of white men, who had brought wicked
people into their country. The wicked people were gone, but fear
remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything
within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as
long as he clings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle,
indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his
thoughts; that lurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the
struggle of his last breath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered
extra human sacrifices to all the Evil Spirits that had taken
possession of his white friends. His heart was heavy. Some
warriors spoke about burning and killing, but the cautious old
savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe those mysteri-
ous creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be left alone.
Perhaps in time they would disappear into the earth as the first one

had disappeared. His people must keep away from diem, and
hope for die best.

Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on
this earth, that, somehow, diey fancied had become bigger and
very empty. It was not the absolute and dumb solitude of the post
diat impressed them so much as an inarticulate feeling that
something from within diem was gone, something that worked for
their safety, and had kept die wilderness from interfering with their
hearts. The images of home; the memory of people like them, of
men that thought and felt as they used to think and feel, receded
into distances made indistinct by die glare of unclouded sunshine.
And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness, its very
hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, to
draw diem gently, to look upon them, to envelop them widi a
solicitude irresistible, familiar, and disgusting.

Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's
people drummed and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but
kept away from the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a
canoe to open communications, but were received with a shower
of arrows, and had to fly back to the station for dear life. That
attempt set the country up and down the river into an uproar diat
could be very distinctly heard for days. The steamer was late. At
first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily.
The matter was becoming serious. Stores were running short. Car-
lier cast his lines off the bank, but die river was low, and die fish
kept out in die stream. They dared not stroll far away from die sta-
tion to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in die impenetrable
forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had no boat to
secure it, and it sank. When it floated up it drifted away, and
Gobila's people secured die carcass. It was die occasion for a
national holiday, but Carlier had a fit of rage over it, and talked
about the necessity of exterminating all the niggers before the
country could be made habitable. Kayerts mooned about silendy;
spent hours looking at die portrait of his Melie. It represented a
littie girl with long bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs
were much swollen, and he could hardly walk. Carlier,
undermined by fever, could not swagger any more, but kept tot-
tering about, still with a devil-may-care air, as became a man who
remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoarse, sarcastic,
and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being frank
with you." They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade,
including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola." They
had also concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated
at first— was afraid of die Director.

"He has seen worse things done on the quiet," maintained
Carlier, with a hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't diank you if
you blab. He is no better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold

our tongues? There is nobody here."

That was the root of the trouble! There was nobody there; and
being left there alone with their weakness, they became daily more
like a pair of accomplices than like a couple of devoted friends.
They had heard nothing from home for eight months. Every
evening they said, "To-morrow we shall see the steamer." But one
of die Company's steamers had been wrecked, and die Director
was busy with die odier, relieving very distant and important
stations on die main river. He thought that die useless station, and
the useless men, could wait. Meantime Kayerts and Carlier lived
on rice boiled without salt, and cursed die Company, all Africa,
and die day they were born. One must have lived on such diet to
discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's
food may become. There was literally nothing else in the station
but rice and coffee; diey drank die coffee widiout sugar. The last
fifteen lumps Kayerts had solemnly locked away in his box, to-
gether with a half-bottle of Cognac, "in case of sickness," he
explained. Carlier approved. "When one is sick," he said, "any
little extra like that is cheering."

They waited. Rank grass began to sprout over the courtyard.
The bell never rang now. Days passed, silent, exasperating, and
slow. When die two men spoke, diey snarled; and dieir silences
were bitter, as if tinged by die bitterness of dieir dioughts.

One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup
untasted, and said:

"Hang it all! Let's have a decent cup of coffee for once. Bring
out diat sugar, Kayerts!"

'Tor die sick," muttered Kayerts, widiout looking up.

"For die sick," mocked Carlier. "Bosh! . . . Well! I am sick."

"You are no more sick dian I am, and I go widiout," said
Kayerts in a peaceful tone.

"Come! out with that sugar, you sting}' old slave -dealer."

Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked
insolence. And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts diat he had never
seen diat man before. Who was he? He knew nothing about him.
What was he capable of? There was a surprising flash of violent
emotion within him, as if in the presence of something undreamt-
of, dangerous, and final But he managed to pronounce with
composure—

"That joke is in very bad taste. Don't repeat it."

"Joke!" said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. "I am
hungry— I am sick— I don't joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a
hypocrite. You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There's
nothing but slave-dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have
sugar in my coffee to-day, anyhow!"

"I forbid you to speak to me in that w r ay," said Kayerts with a
fair show of resolution.

"You!— What?" shouted Carlier, jumping up.

Kayerts stood up also. "I am your chief," he began, trying to
master the shakiness of his voice.

"What?" yelled the other. "Who's chief? There's no chief
here. There's nothing here: there's nothing but you and I. Fetch
the sugar— you pot-bellied ass."

"Hold your tongue. Go out of this room," screamed Kayerts.
"I dismiss you— you scoundrel!"

Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in
earnest. "You flabby, good-for-nothing civilian— take that!" he
howled.

Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the grass
inner wall of the room. Then, as Carlier was trying to upset the
table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a
cornered pig would do, and overturning his friend, bolted along
the verandah, and into his room. He locked the door, snatched his
revolver, and stood panting. In less than a minute Carlier was
kicking at die door furiously, howling, "If you don't bring out that
sugar, I will shoot you at sight, like a dog. Now dien— one— two-
three. You won't? I will show you who's the master."

Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled dirough
the square hole diat served for a window in his room. There was
then die whole breadth of die house between them. But the other
was apparently not strong enough to break in the door, and
Kayerts heard him running round. Then he also began to run
laboriously on his swollen legs. He ran as quickly as he could,
grasping die revolver, and unable yet to understand what was
happening to him. He saw in succession Makola's house, the store,
the river, die ravine, and the low bushes; and he saw all diose
things again as he ran for die second time round the house. Then
again they flashed past him. That morning he could not have
walked a yard widiout a groan.

And now he ran. He ran fast enough to keep out of sight of die
odier man.

Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the
next round I shall die," he heard the odier man stumble heavily,
then stop. He stopped also. He had the back and Carlier die front
of die house, as before. He heard him drop into a chair cursing,
and suddenly his own legs gave way, and he slid down into a sitting
posture with his back to die wall. His moudi was as dry as a cinder,
and his face was wet with perspiration— and tears. What was it all
about? He thought it must be a horrible illusion; he diought he
was dreaming; he thought he was going mad! After a while he
collected his senses. What did they quarrel about? That sugar!
How absurd! He would give it to him— didn't want it himself. And
he began scrambling to his feet with a sudden feeling of security.
But before he had fairly stood upright, a common-sense reflection

occurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: If I
give way now to that brute of a soldier, he will begin this horror
again to-morrow— and the day after— every day— raise other
pretensions, trample on me, torture me, make me his slave— and I
will be lost! Lost! The steamer may not come for days— may never
come. He shook so that he had to sit down on the floor again. He
shivered forlornly. He felt he could not, would not move any
more. He was completely distracted by the sudden perception that
die position was widiout issue— that death and life had in a moment
become equally difficult and terrible.

All at once he heard die odier push his chair back; and he
leaped to his feet with extreme facility. He listened and got con-
fused. Must run again! Right or left? He heard footsteps. He
darted to die left, grasping his revolver, and at die very same
instant, as it seemed to him, diey came into violent collision. Both
shouted with surprise. A loud explosion took place between them;
a roar of red fire, thick smoke; and Kayerts, deafened and blinded,
rushed back thinking: I am hit— it's all over. He expected the other
to come round— to gloat over his agony. He caught hold of an up-
right of die roof— "All over!" Then he heard a crashing fall on the
odier side of die house, as if somebody had tumbled headlong
over a chair— then silence. Nothing more happened. He did not
die. Only his shoulder felt as if it had been badly wrenched, and he
had lost his revolver. He was disarmed and helpless! He waited for
his fate. The other man made no sound. It was a stratagem. He
was stalking him now! Along what side? Perhaps he was taking aim
this very minute!

After a few moments of an agony frightful and absurd, he
decided to go and meet his doom. He was prepared for every sur-
render. He turned the corner, steadying himself with one hand on
the wall; made a few paces, and nearly swooned. He had seen on
the floor, protruding past the odier comer, a pair of turned-up feet.
A pair of white naked feet in red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and
stood for a time in profound darkness. Then Makola appeared
before him, saying quiedy: "Come along, Mr. Kayerts. He is
dead." He burst into tears of gratitude; a loud, sobbing fit of crying.
After a time he found himself sitting in a chair and looking at
Carlier, who lay stretched on his back. Makola was kneeling over
die body.

"Is diis your revolver?" asked Makola, getting up.

"Yes," said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after
me to shoot me— you saw!"

"Yes, I saw," said Makola. "There is only one revolver; where's
his?"

"Don't know," whispered Kayerts in a voice that had become
suddenly very faint.

"I will go and look for it," said die other gendy. He made die

round along the verandah, while Kayerts sat still and looked at tire
corpse. Makola came back empty-handed, stood in deep thought,
then stepped quietly into the dead man's room, and came out
directly with a revolver, which he held up before Kayerts. Kayerts
shut his eyes. Everything was going round. He found life more
terrible and difficult than death. He had shot an unarmed man.

After meditating for a while, Makola said softly, pointing at the
dead man who lay there with his right eye blown out—

"He died of fever." Kayerts looked at him with a stony stare.

"Yes," repeated Makola thoughtfully, stepping over the corpse,
"I think he died of fever. Bury him to-morrow."

And he went away slowly to his expectant wife, leaving the two
white men alone on the verandah.

Night came, and Kayerts sat unmoving on his chair. He sat
quiet as if he had taken a dose of opium. The violence of the
emotions he had passed through produced a feeling of exhausted
serenity. He had plumbed in one short afternoon the depths of
horror and despair, and now found repose in the conviction that
life had no more secrets for him: neither had death! He sat by the
corpse thinking; thinking very actively, thinking very new thoughts.
He seemed to have broken loose from himself altogether. His old
thoughts, convictions, likes and dislikes, things he respected and
things he abhorred, appeared in their true light at last! Appeared
contemptible and childish, false and ridiculous. He reveled in his
new wisdom while he sat by the man he had killed. He argued with
himself about all tilings under heaven with that kind of wrong-
headed lucidity which may be observed in some lunatics.
Incidentally he reflected that the fellow dead there had been a
noxious beast anyway; that men died every day in thousands;
perhaps in hundreds of thousands— who could tell?— and that in
the number, that one death could not possibly make any
difference; couldn't have any importance, at least to a thinking
creature. He, Kayerts, was a thinking creature. He had been all his
life, till that moment, a believer in a lot of nonsense like the rest of
mankind— who are fools; but now he thought! He knew! He was at
peace; he was familial' with the highest wisdom! Then he tried to
imagine himself dead, and Carlier sitting in his chair watching him;
and his attempt met with such unexpected success, that in a very
few moments he became not at all sure who was dead and who was
alive. This extraordinary achievement of his fancy startled him,
however, and by a clever and timely effort of mind he saved
himself just in time from becoming Carlier. His heart thumped,
and he felt hot all over at the thought of that danger. Carlier! What
a beastly thing! To compose his now disturbed nerves— and no
wonder!— he tried to whistle a little. Then, suddenly, he fell asleep,
or thought he had slept; but at any rate there was a fog, and
somebody had whistled in the fog.

He stood up. The day had come, and a heavy mist had
descended upon die land: the mist penetrating, enveloping, and
silent; the morning mist of tropical lands; the mist diat clings and
kills; the mist white and deadly, immaculate and poisonous. He
stood up, saw die body, and direw his arms above his head with a
cry like diat of a man who, waking from a trance, finds himself
immured for ever in a tomb. "Help! . . . My God!"

A shriek inhuman, vibrating and sudden, pierced like a sharp
dart die white shroud of that land of sorrow. Three short, im-
patient screeches followed, and dien, for a time, the fog-wreaths
rolled on, undisturbed, dirough a formidable silence. Then many
more shrieks, rapid and piercing, like the yells of some
exasperated and rudiless creature, rent the air. Progress was calling
to Kayerts from die river. Progress and civilisation and all the
virtues. Society was calling to its accomplished child to come, to be
taken care of, to be instructed, to be judged, to be condemned; it
called him to return to diat rubbish heap from which he had
wandered away, so that justice could be done.

Kayerts heard and understood. He stumbled out of die
verandah, leaving the odier man quite alone for the first time since
they had been thrown there together. He groped his way dirough
the fog, calling in his ignorance upon the invisible heaven to undo
its work. Makola flitted by in die mist, shouting as he ran—

"Steamer! Steamer! They can't see. They whisde for die
station. I go ring die bell. Go down to the landing, sir. I ring."

He disappeared. Kayerts stood still. He looked upwards; die
fog rolled low over his head. He looked round like a man who has
lost his way; and he saw a dark smudge, a cross-shaped stain, upon
the shifting purity of the mist. As he began to stumble towards it,
die station bell rang in a tumultuous peal its answer to the
impatient clamour of die steamer.

The Managing Director of the Great Civilising Company (since
we know that civilisation follows trade) landed first, and incon-
tinently lost sight of the steamer. The fog down by the river was
exceedingly dense; above, at die station, die bell rang unceasing
and brazen.

The Director shouted loudly to die steamer:

"There is nobody down to meet us; there may be something
wrong, though they are ringing. You had better come, too!"

And he began to toil up the steep bank. The captain and the
engine-driver of the boat followed behind. As they scrambled up
the fog diinned, and they could see their Director a good way
ahead. Suddenly they saw him start forward, calling to them over
his shoulder:— "Run! Run to die house! I've found one of diem.
Run, look for die odier!"

He had found one of them! And even he, the man of varied

and startling experience, was somewhat discomposed by the
manner of this finding. He stood and fumbled in his pockets (for a
knife) while he faced Kayerts, who was hanging by a leather strap
from the cross. He had evidently climbed the grave, which was
high and narrow, and after tying the end of the strap to die arm,
had swung himself off. His toes were only a couple of inches above
the ground; his arms hung stiffly down; he seemed to be standing
rigidly at attention, but with one purple cheek playfully posed on
the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was putting out a swollen
tongue at his Managing Director.

The Return

THE inner circle train from the City rushed impetuously out of a
black hole and pulled up with a discordant, grinding racket in the
smirched twilight of a West-End station. A line of doors flew open
and a lot of men stepped out headlong. They had high hats,
healthy pale faces, dark overcoats and shiny boots; they held in
their gloved hands thin umbrellas and hastily folded evening
papers that resembled stiff, dirty rags of greenish, pinkish, or
whitish colour. Alvan Hervey stepped out with the rest, a
smouldering cigar between his teeth. A disregarded little woman in
rusty black, with both arms full of parcels, ran along in distress,
bolted suddenly into a third-class compartment and the train went
on. The slamming of carriage doors burst out sharp and spiteful
like a fusillade; an icy draught mingled with acrid fumes swept the
whole length of the platform and made a tottering old man,
wrapped up to his ears in a woolen comforter, stop short in the
moving throng to cough violently over his stick. No one spared
him a glance.

Alvan Hervey passed through the ticket gate. Between the bare
walls of a sordid staircase men clambered rapidly; their backs
appeared alike— almost as if they had been wearing a uniform; their
indifferent faces were varied but somehow suggested kinship, like
the faces of a band of brothers who through prudence, dignity,
disgust, or foresight would resolutely ignore each other; and their
eyes, quick or slow; their eyes gazing up the dusty steps; their eyes,
brown, black, grey, blue, had all the same stare, concentrated and
empty, satisfied and unthinking.

Outside the big doorway of the street they scattered in all
directions, walking away fast from one another with the hurried air
of men fleeing from something compromising; from familiarity or
confidences; from something suspected and concealed— like truth
or pestilence. Alvan Hervey hesitated, standing alone in the
doorway for a moment; then decided to walk home.

He strode firmly. A misty rain settled like silvery dust on
clothes, on moustaches; wetted the faces, varnished the flagstones,
darkened the walls, dripped from umbrellas. And he moved on in
the rain with careless serenity, with the tranquil ease of some one
successful, and disdainful, very sure of himself— a man with lots of
money and friends. He was tall, well set up, good-looking and
healthy; and his clear pale face had under its commonplace
refinement that slight tinge of overbearing brutality which is given
by the possession of only partly difficult accomplishments; by
excelling in games, or in the ait of making money; by the easy
master}? over animals and over needy men.

He was going home much earlier than usual, straight from the
City and without calling at his club. He considered himself well

connected, well educated, and intelligent. Who doesn't? But his
connections, education, and intelligence were stricdy on a par with
those of the men with whom he did business or amused himself.
He had married five years ago. At the time all his acquaintances
had said he was very much in love; and he had said so himself,
frankly, because it is very well understood diat every man falls in
love once in his life— unless his wife dies, when it may be quite
praiseworthy to fall in love again. The girl was healthy, tall, fair,
and, in his opinion, was well connected, well educated and intelli-
gent. She was also intensely bored widi her home where, as if
packed in a tight box, her individuality— of which she was very
conscious— had no play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong and
upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure
eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered
quickly to all those charms, and she appeared to him so
unquestionably of die right sort that he did not hesitate for a
moment to declare himself in love. Under the cover of that sacred
and poetical fiction he desired her masterfully, for various reasons;
but principally for the satisfaction of having his own way. He was
very dull and solemn about it— for no earthly reason, unless to
conceal his feelings— which is an eminently proper thing to do.
Nobody however would have been shocked had he neglected diat
duty, for die feeling he experienced really was a longing— a longing
stronger and a little more complex no doubt, but no more
reprehensible in its nature than a hungry man's appetite for his
dinner.

After dieir marriage diey busied themselves, with marked
success, in enlarging die circle of dieir acquaintance. Thirty people
knew them by sight; twenty more with smiling demonstrations
tolerated their occasional presence within hospitable thresholds; at
least fifty others became aware of their existence. They moved in
their enlarged world amongst perfectly delightful men and women
who feared emotion, enthusiasm, or failure, more than fire, war, or
mortal disease; who tolerated only die commonest formulas of
commonest thoughts, and recognised only profitable facts. It was
an extremely charming sphere, the abode of all the virtues, where
nothing is realised and where all joys and sorrows are cautiously
toned down into pleasures and annoyances: In that serene region,
tiien, where noble sentiments are cultivated in sufficient profusion
to conceal the pitiless materialism of thoughts and aspirations
Alvan Hervey and his wife spent five years of prudent bliss
unclouded by any doubt as to die moral propriety of their ex-
istence. She, to give her individuality fair play, took up all manner
of philanthropic work and became a member of various rescuing
and reforming societies patronised or presided over by ladies of
tide. He took an active interest in politics; and having met quite by
chance a literary man— who nevertheless was related to an earl— he

was induced to finance a moribund society paper. It was a semi-
political, and wholly scandalous publication, redeemed by exces-
sive dullness; and as it was utterly faithless, as it contained no new
thought, as it never by any chance had a flash of wit, satire, or
indignation in its pages, he judged it respectable enough, at first
sight. Afterwards, when it paid, he promptly perceived that upon
the whole it was a virtuous undertaking. It paved the way of his
ambition; and he enjoyed also the special kind of importance he
derived from this connection with what he imagined to be litera-
ture.

This connection still further enlarged their world. Men who
wrote or drew prettily for the public came at times to their house,
and his editor came very often. He thought him rather an ass
because he had such big front teeth (the proper thing is to have
small, even teeth) and wore his hair a trifle longer than most men
do. However, some dukes wear their hair long, and the fellow
indubitably knew his business. The worst was that his gravity,
though perfectly portentous, could not be trusted. He sat, elegant
and bulky, in the drawing-room, the head of his stick hovering in
front of his big teeth, and talked for hours with a thick-lipped smile
(he said nothing that could be considered objectionable and not
quite the tiling); talked in an unusual manner— not obviously—
irritatingly. His forehead was too lofty— unusually so— and under it
there was a straight nose, lost between the hairless cheeks, that in a
smooth curve ran into a chin shaped like the end of a snow-shoe.
And in this face that resembled the face of a fat and fiendishly
knowing baby there glittered a pair of clever, peering, unbelieving
black eyes. He wrote verses too. Rather an ass. But the band of
men who trailed at the skirts of his monumental frock-coat seemed
to perceive wonderful things in what he said. Alvan Heivey put it
down to affectation. Those artist chaps, upon the whole, were so
affected. Still, all this was highly proper— very useful to him— and
his wife seemed to like it— as if she also had derived some distinct
and secret advantage from this intellectual connection. She
received her mixed and decorous guests with a kind of tall,
ponderous grace, peculiarly her own and which awakened in the
mind of intimidated strangers incongruous and improper
reminiscences of an elephant, a giraffe, a gazelle; of a gothic
tower— of an overgrown angel. Her Thursdays were becoming
famous in their world; and their world grew r steadily, annexing
street after street. It included also Somebody's Gardens, a
Crescent— a couple of Squares.

Thus Alvan Heivey and his wife for five prosperous years lived
by the side of one another. In time they came to know r each other
sufficiently well for all the practical purposes of such an existence,
but they w r ere no more capable of real intimacy than two animals
feeding at the same manger, under the same roof, in a luxurious

stable. His longing was appeased and became a habit; and she had
her desire— the desire to get away from under the paternal roof, to
assert her individuality, to move in her own set (so much smarter
than the parental one); to have a home of her own, and her own
share of the world's respect, envy, and applause. They understood
each other warily, tacitly, like a pair of cautious conspirators in a
profitable plot; because they were both unable to look at a fact, a
sentiment, a principle, or a belief otherwise than in the light of
their own dignity, of their own glorification, of their own advantage.
They skimmed over the surface of life hand in hand, in a pure and
frosty atmosphere— like two skilful skaters cutting figures on thick
ice for the admiration of the beholders, and disdainfully ignoring
the hidden stream, the stream restless and dark; the stream of life,
profound and unfrozen.

Alvan Hervey turned twice to the left, once to the right, walked
along two sides of a square, in the middle of which groups of tame-
looking trees stood in respectable captivity behind iron railings,
and rang at his door. A parlourmaid opened. A fad of his wife's,
this, to have only women servants. That girl, while she took his hat
and overcoat, said something which made him look at his watch. It
was five o'clock, and his wife not at home. There was nothing un-
usual in that. He said "No; no tea," and went upstairs.

He ascended without footfalls. Brass rods glimmered all up the
red carpet. On the first-floor landing a marble woman, decently
covered from neck to instep with stone draperies, advanced a row
of lifeless toes to the edge of the pedestal, and thrust out blindly a
rigid white arm holding a cluster of lights. He had artistic tastes— at
home. Heavy curtains caught back, half concealed dark corners.
On the rich, stamped paper of the walls hung sketches, water-
colours, engravings. His tastes were distinctly artistic. Old church
towers peeped above green masses of foliage; the hills were purple,
the sands yellow, the seas sunny, the skies blue. A young lady
sprawled with dreamy eyes in a moored boat, in company of a
lunch basket, a champagne bottle, and an enamoured man in a
blazer. Bare -legged boys flirted sweetly with ragged maidens, slept
on stone steps, gamboled with dogs. A pathetically lean girl
flattened against a blank wall, turned up expiring eyes and
tendered a flower for sale; while, near by, the large photographs of
some famous and mutilated bas-reliefs seemed to represent a
massacre turned into stone.

He looked, of course, at nothing, ascended another flight of
stairs and went straight into the dressing room. A bronze dragon
nailed by the tail to a bracket writhed away from the wall in calm
convolutions, and held, between the conventional fury of its jaws, a
crude gas flame that resembled a butterfly. The room was empty,
of course; but, as he stepped in, it became filled all at once with a

stir of many people; because the strips of glass on the doors of
wardrobes and his wife's large pier-glass reflected him from head
to foot, and multiplied his image into a crowd of gentlemanly and
slavish imitators, who were dressed exactly like himself; had the
same restrained and rare gestures; who moved when he moved,
stood still with him in an obsequious immobility, and had just such
appearances of life and feeling as he thought it dignified and safe
for any man to manifest. And like real people who are slaves of
common thoughts, that are not even their own, they affected a
shadow}' independence by the superficial variety of their
movements. They moved together with him; but they either
advanced to meet him, or walked away from him; they appeared,
disappeared; they seemed to dodge behind walnut furniture, to be
seen again, far within the polished panes, stepping about distinct
and unreal in the convincing illusion of a room. And like the men
he respected they could be trusted to do nothing individual,
original, or startling— nothing unforeseen and nothing improper.

He moved for a time aimlessly in that good company,
humming a popular but refined tune, and thinking vaguely of a
business letter from abroad, which had to be answered on the
morrow with cautious prevarication. Then, as he walked towards a
wardrobe, he saw appearing at his back, in the high mirror, the
corner of his wife's dressing-table, and, amongst the glitter of silver-
mounted objects on it, the square white patch of an envelope. It
was such an unusual thing to be seen there that he spun round
almost before he realised his surprise; and all the sham men about
him pivoted on their heels; all appeared surprised; and all moved
rapidly towards envelopes on dressing-tables.

He recognised his wife's handwriting and saw that the envelope
was addressed to himself. He muttered, "How very odd," and felt
annoyed. Apart from any odd action being essentially an indecent
thing in itself, the fact of his wife indulging in it made it doubly
offensive. That she should write to him at all, when she knew he
would be home for dinner, was perfectly ridiculous; but that she
should leave it like this— in evidence for chance discovery— struck
him as so outrageous that, thinking of it, he experienced suddenly
a staggering sense of insecurity, an absurd and bizarre flash of a
notion that the house had moved a little under his feet. He tore
the envelope open, glanced at the letter, and sat down in a chair
near by.

He held the paper before his eyes and looked at half a dozen
lines scrawled on the page, while he was stunned by a noise mean-
ingless and violent, like the clash of gongs or the beating of drums;
a great aimless uproar that, in a manner, prevented him from
hearing himself think and made his mind an absolute blank. This
absurd and distracting tumult seemed to ooze out of the written
words, to issue from between his very fingers that trembled,

holding the paper. And suddenly he dropped die letter as though
it had been something hot, or venomous, or filthy; and rushing to
the window widi die unreflecting precipitation of a man anxious to
raise an alarm of fire or murder, he direw it up and put his head
out.

A chill gust of wind, wandering dirough the damp and sooty
obscurity over the waste of roofs and chimney-pots, touched his
face widi a clammy flick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which
stood a black jumble of walls, and, between them, the many rows
of gaslights stretched far away in long lines, like strung-up beads of
fire. A sinister loom as of a hidden conflagration lit up faintly from
below the mist, falling upon a billowy and motionless sea of tiles
and bricks. At the rattle of the opened window the world seemed
to leap out of the night and confront him, while floating up to his
ears diere came a sound vast and faint; die deep mutter of
something immense and alive. It penetrated him with a feeling of
dismay and he gasped silently. From die cab-stand in the square
came distinct hoarse voices and a jeering laugh which sounded
ominously harsh and cruel. It sounded threatening. He drew his
head in, as if before an aimed blow, and flung die window down
quickly. He made a few steps, stumbled against a chair, and, with a
great effort, pulled himself together to lay hold of a certain thought
diat was whizzing about loose in his head.

He got it at last, after more exertion than he expected; he was
flushed and puffed a little as though he had been catching it with
his hands, but his mental hold on it was weak, so weak diat he
judged it necessary to repeat it aloud— to hear it spoken firmly— in
order to insure a perfect measure of possession. But he w r as
unwilling to hear his own voice— to hear any sound whatever-
owing to a vague belief, shaping itself slowly within him, diat
solitude and silence are the greatest felicities of mankind. The next
moment it dawned upon him that they are perfecdy unattainable—
that faces must be seen, words spoken, dioughts heard. All die
words— all the thoughts!

He said very distinctly, and looking at die carpet, "She's gone."

It was terrible— not die fact but the words; the words charged
with the shadow^ 7 might of a meaning, that seemed to possess die
tremendous power to call Fate down upon die eardi, like those
strange and appalling words diat sometimes are heard in sleep.
They vibrated round him in a metallic atmosphere, in a space that
had the hardness of iron and the resonance of a bell of bronze.
Looking down between die toes of his boots he seemed to listen
dioughtfully to die receding wave of sound; to die wave spreading
out in a widening circle, embracing streets, roofs, church-steeples,
fields— and traveling away, widening endlessly, far, very far, where
he could not hear— where he could not imagine anything— wiiere . .

"And— with that . . . ass," he said again without stirring in the
least. And diere was nothing but humiliation. Nothing else. He
could derive no moral solace from any aspect of the situation,
which radiated pain only on every side. Pain. What kind of pain?
It occurred to him that he ought to be heart-broken; but in an
exceedingly short moment he perceived diat his suffering was
nothing of so trifling and dignified a kind. It was altogether a more
serious matter, and partook rather of the nature of those subtle
and cruel feelings which are awakened by a kick or a horse-
whipping.

He felt very sick— physically sick— as though he had bitten
through something nauseous. Life, that to a well-ordered mind
should be a matter of congratulation, appeared to him, for a
second or so, perfecdy intolerable. He picked up the paper at his
feet, and sat down with the wish to think it out, to understand why
his wife— his wife!— should leave him, should throw away respect,
comfort, peace, decency, position— throw away everything for
nothing! He set himself to think out the hidden logic of her
action— a mental undertaking fit for the leisure hours of a
madhouse, though he couldn't see it. And he thought of his wife in
every relation except the only fundamental one. He thought of her
as a well-bred girl, as a wife, as a cultured person, as die mistress of
a house, as a lady; but he never for a moment thought of her
simply as a woman.

Then a fresh wave, a raging wave of humiliation, swept through
his mind, and left nothing there but a personal sense of unde-
served abasement. Why should he be mixed up with such a horrid
exposure! It annihilated all the advantages of his well-ordered past,
by a truth effective and unjust like a calumny— and the past was
wasted. Its failure was disclosed— a distinct failure, on his part, to
see, to guard, to understand. It could not be denied; it could not
be explained away, hustled out of sight. He could not sit on it and
look solemn. Now— if she had only died!

If she had only died! He was driven to envy such a respectable
bereavement, and one so perfectly free from any taint of mis-
fortune that even his best friend or his best enemy would not have
felt die slightest thrill of exultation. No one would have cared. He
sought comfort in clinging to die contemplation of the only fact of
life that the resolute efforts of mankind had never failed to disguise
in the clatter and glamour of phrases. And nothing lends itself
more to lies than death. If she had only died! Certain words would
have been said to him in a sad tone, and he, with proper fortitude,
w r ould have made appropriate answers. There were precedents for
such an occasion. And no one would have cared. If she had only
died! The promises, die terrors, the hopes of eternity, are the con-
cern of the corrupt dead; but die obvious sweetness of life belongs
to living, healtiiy men. And life was his concern: that sane and

gratifying existence untroubled by too much love or by too much
regret. She had interfered with it; she had defaced it. And suddenly
it occurred to him he must have been mad to marry. It was too
much in the nature of giving yourself away, of wearing— if for a
moment— your heart on your sleeve. But every one married. Was
all mankind mad!

In the shock of that starding diought he looked up, and saw to
the left, to the right, in front, men sitting far off in chairs and
looking at him with wild eyes— emissaries of a distracted mankind
intruding to spy upon his pain and his humiliation. It was not to be
borne. He rose quickly, and the others jumped up too on all sides.
He stood still in the middle of die room as if discouraged by their
vigilance. No escape! He felt something akin to despair. Everybody
must know. All die world must know to-morrow. The servants
must know tonight. He ground his teedi. . . . And he had never
noticed, never guessed anything. Every one will know. He thought:
The woman's a monster, but everybody will think me a fool; and
standing still in the midst of severe walnut-wood furniture, he felt
such a tempest of anguish within him diat he seemed to see
himself rolling on the carpet, beating his head against die wall. He
was disgusted with himself, with die loathsome rush of emotion
breaking through all the reserves that guarded his manhood.
Something unknown, withering and poisonous, had entered his
life, passed near him, touched him, and he was deteriorating. He
was appalled. What was it? She was gone. Why? His head was
ready to burst widi die endeavour to understand her act and his
subtle horror of it. Everything was changed. Why? Only a woman
gone, after all; and yet he had a vision, a vision quick and distinct
as a dream: the vision of everything he had thought indestructible
and safe in this world crashing down about him, like solid walls do
before the fierce breath of a hurricane. He stared, shaking in every
limb, while he felt die destructive breath, the mysterious breath,
the breath of passion, stir the profound peace of the house. He
looked round in fear. Yes. Crime may be forgiven; uncalculating
sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, other follies, may be turned to
account; suffering, death itself, may with a grin or a frown be
explained away; but passion is the unpardonable and secret infamy
of our hearts, a tiling to curse, to hide and to deny; a shameless
and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises, that
tears off the placid mask, that strips naked the body of life. And it
had come to him! It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless
draperies of his existence, and he had to face it alone with all the
w r orld looking on. All the world! And he thought that even the bare
suspicion of such an adversary within his house carried with it a
taint and a condemnation. He put both his hands out as if to ward
off die approach of a defiling truth; and, instantly, the appalled
conclave of unreal men, standing about mutely beyond the clear

lustre of mirrors, made at him the same gesture of rejection and
horror.

He glanced vainly here and there, like a man looking in
desperation for a weapon or for a hiding place, and understood at
last that he was disarmed and cornered by an enemy that, without
any squeamishness, would strike so as to lay open his heart. He
could get help nowhere, or even take counsel with himself,
because in the sudden shock of her desertion the sentiments which
he knew that in fidelity to his bringing up, to his prejudices and his
surroundings, he ought to experience, were so mixed up with the
novelty of real feelings, of fundamental feelings, that know nothing
of creed, class, or education, that he was unable to distinguish
clearly between what is and what ought to be; between the
inexcusable truth and the valid pretences. And he knew in-
stinctively that truth would be of no use to him. Some kind of
concealment seemed a necessity because one cannot explain. Of
course not! Who would listen? One had simply to be without stain
and without reproach to keep one's place in the forefront of life.

He said to himself, "I must get over it the best I can," and
began to walk up and down the room. What next? What ought to
be done? He thought: I will travel— no I won't. I shall face it out.
And after that resolve he was greatly cheered by the reflection that
it would be a mute and an easy part to play, for no one would be
likely to converse with him about the abominable conduct of— that
woman. He argued to himself that decent people— and he knew no
others— did not care to talk about such indelicate affairs. She had
gone off— with that unhealthy, fat ass of a journalist. Why? He had
been all a husband ought to be. He had given her a good
position— she shared his prospects— he had treated her invariably
with great consideration. He reviewed his conduct with a kind of
dismal pride. It had been irreproachable. Then, why? For love?
Profanation! There could be no love there. A shameful impulse of
passion. Yes, passion. His own wife! Good God! . . . And the
indelicate aspect of his domestic misfortune struck him with such
shame that, next moment, he caught himself in the act of
pondering absurdly over the notion whether it would not be more
dignified for him to induce a general belief that he had been in the
habit of beating his wife. Some fellows do . . . and anything would
be better than the filthy fact; for it was clear he had lived with the
root of it for five years— and it was too shameful. Anything!
Anything! Brutality .... But he gave it up directly, and began to
think of the Divorce Court. It did not present itself to him,
notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge
for dignified grief. It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister
cavern where men and women are haled by adverse fate to writhe
ridiculously in the presence of uncompromising truth. It should
not be allowed. That woman! Five . . . years . . . married five years

. . . and never to see anything. Not to the very last day . . . not till
she coolly went off. And he pictured to himself all the people he
knew engaged in speculating as to whether all that time he had
been blind, foolish, or infatuated. What a woman! Blind! . . . Not
at all. Could a clean-minded man imagine such depravity?
Evidently not. He drew a free breath. That was the attitude to take;
it was dignified enough; it gave him the advantage, and he could
not help perceiving that it was moral. He yearned unaffectedly to
see morality (in his person) triumphant before die world. As to
her— she would be forgotten. Let her be forgotten— buried in
oblivion— lost! No one would allude. . . . Refined people— and
every man and woman he knew could be so described— had, of
course, a horror of such topics. Had they? Oh, yes. No one would
allude to her ... in his hearing. He stamped his foot, tore die letter
across, then again and again. The thought of sympathising friends
excited in him a fury of mistrust. He flung down die small bits of
paper. They setded, fluttering, at his feet, and looked very white on
the dark carpet, like a scattered handful of snow-flakes.

This fit of hot anger was succeeded by a sudden sadness, by
the darkening passage of a thought diat ran over die scorched sur-
face of his heart, like upon a barren plain, and after a fiercer
assault of sunrays, die melancholy and cooling shadow of a cloud.
He realised diat he had had a shock— not a violent or rending
blow, that can be seen, resisted, returned, forgotten, but a thrust,
insidious and penetrating, diat had stirred all those feelings,
concealed and cruel, which die arts of the devil, die fears of
mankind— God's infinite compassion, perhaps— keep chained deep
down in the inscrutable twilight of our breasts. A dark curtain
seemed to rise before him, and for less dian a second he looked
upon die mysterious universe of moral suffering. As a landscape is
seen complete, and vast, and vivid, under a flash of lightning, so he
could see disclosed in a moment, all die immensity of pain diat
can be contained in one short moment of human thought Then
the curtain fell again, but his rapid vision left in Alvan Hervey's
mind a trail of invincible sadness, a sense of loss and bitter
solitude, as though he had been robbed and exiled. For a moment
he ceased to be a member of society with a position, a career, and
a name attached to all this, like a descriptive label of some
complicated compound. He was a simple human being removed
from the delightful world of crescents and squares. He stood
alone, naked and afraid, like the first man on die first day of evil.
There are in life events, contacts, glimpses, diat seem brutally to
bring all die past to a close. There is a shock and a crash, as of a
gate flung to behind one by the perfidious hand of fate. Go and
seek anodier paradise, fool or sage. There is a moment of dumb
dismay, and the wanderings must begin again; die painful
explaining away of facts, the feverish raking up of illusions, the

cultivation of a fresh crop of lies in the sweat of one's brow, to
sustain life, to make it supportable, to make it fair, so as to hand
intact to another generation of blind wanderers the charming
legend of a heartless country, of a promised land, all flowers and
blessings. . . .

He came to himself with a slight start, and became aware of an
oppressive, crushing desolation. It was only a feeling, it is true, but
it produced on him a physical effect, as though his chest had been
squeezed in a vice. He perceived himself so extremely forlorn and
lamentable, and was moved so deeply by the oppressive sorrow,
that another turn of the screw, he felt, would bring tears out of his
eyes. He was deteriorating. Five years of life in common had
appeased his longing. Yes, long-time ago. The first five months did
that— but . . . There was the habit— the habit of her person, of her
smile, of her gestures, of her voice, of her silence. She had a pure
brow, and good hair. How utterly wretched all this was. Good hair
and fine eyes— remarkably fine. He was surprised by the number
of details that intruded upon his unwilling memory. He could not
help remembering her footsteps, the rustle of her dress, her way of
holding her head, her decisive manner of saying "Alvan," the
quiver of her nostrils when she was annoyed. All that had been so
much his property, so intimately and specially his! He raged in a
mournful, silent way, as he took stock of his losses. He was like a
man counting the cost of an unlucky speculation— irritated,
depressed— exasperated with himself and with others, with the
fortunate, with the indifferent, with the callous; yet the wrong done
him appeared so cruel that he would perhaps have dropped a tear
over that spoliation if it had not been for his conviction that men
do not weep. Foreigners do; they also kill sometimes in such
circumstances. And to his horror he felt himself driven to regret
almost that the usages of a society ready to forgive the shooting of a
burglar forbade him, under the circumstances, even as much as a
thought of murder. Nevertheless, he clenched his fists and set his
teeth hard. And he was afraid at the same-time. He was afraid with
that penetrating faltering fear that seems, in the very middle of a
beat, to turn one's heart into a handful of dust. The contamination
of her crime spread out, tainted the universe, tainted himself; woke
up all the dormant infamies of the world; caused a ghastly kind of
clairvoyance in which he could see the towns and fields of the
earth, its sacred places, its temples and its houses, peopled by
monsters— by monsters of duplicity, lust, and murder. She was a
monster— he himself was thinking monstrous thoughts . . . and yet
he was like other people. How many men and women at this very
moment were plunged in abominations— meditated crimes. It was
frightful to think of. He remembered all the streets— the well-to-do
streets he had passed on his way home; all the innumerable houses
with closed doors and curtained windows. Each seemed now an

abode of anguish and foil)'. And his tiiought, as if appalled, stood
still, recalling with dismay die decorous and frightful silence diat
was like a conspiracy; the grim, impenetrable silence of miles of
walls concealing passions, misery, thoughts of crime. Surely he was
not die only man; his was not the only house . . . and yet no one
knew— no one guessed. But he knew. He knew with unerring
certitude that could not be deceived by the correct silence of walls,
of closed doors, of curtained windows. He was beside himself with
a despairing agitation, like a man informed of a deadly secret— die
secret of a calamity direatening the safety of mankind— die
sacredness, the peace of life.

He caught sight of himself in one of the looking-glasses. It was
a relief. The anguish of his feeling had been so powerful diat he
more dian half expected to see some distorted wild face diere, and
he was pleasantly surprised to see nothing of die kind. His aspect,
at any rate, would let no one into the secret of his pain. He
examined himself with attention. His trousers were turned up, and
his boots a little muddy, but he looked very much as usual. Only
his hair was slighdy ruffled, and diat disorder, somehow, was so
suggestive of trouble that he went quickly to die table, and began to
use die brushes, in an anxious desire to obliterate die
compromising trace, that only vestige of his emotion. He brushed
with care, watching die effect of his smoothing; and anodier face,
slightly pale and more tense dian was perhaps desirable, peered
back at him from the toilet glass. He laid die brushes down, and
was not satisfied. He took them up again and brushed, brushed
mechanically— forgot himself in that occupation. The tumult of his
thoughts ended in a sluggish flow of reflection, such as, after die
outburst of a volcano, die almost imperceptible progress of a
stream of lava, creeping languidly over a convulsed land and
pitilessly obliterating any landmark left by die shock of die
eartiiquake. It is a destructive but, by comparison, it is a peaceful
phenomenon. Alvan Hervey was almost soothed by die deliberate
pace of his thoughts. His moral landmarks were going one by one,
consumed in the fire of his experience, buried in hot mud, in
ashes. He was cooling— on die surface; but diere was enough heat
left somewhere to make him slap the brushes on the table, and
turning away, say in a fierce whisper: "I wish him joy . . . Damn the
woman."

He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and die
most significant symptom of his moral downfall was the bitter,
acrid satisfaction with which he recognised it. He, deliberately,
swore in his thoughts; he meditated sneers; he shaped in profound
silence words of cynical unbelief, and his most cherished
convictions stood revealed finally as die narrow prejudices of fools.
A crowd of shapeless, unclean thoughts crossed his mind in a
stealthy rush, like a band of veiled malefactors hastening to a

crime. He put his hands deep into his pockets. He heard a faint
ringing somewhere, and muttered to himself: "I am not the only
one . . . not the only one." There was another ring. Front door!

His heart leaped up into his throat, and forthwith descended as
low as his boots. A call! Who? Why? He wanted to rush out on
the landing and shout to die servant: "Not at home! Gone away
abroad!" . . . Any excuse. He could not face a visitor. Not this
evening. No. To-morrow. . . . Before he could break out of die
numbness, diat enveloped him like a sheet of lead, he heard far
below, as if in the entrails of the eardi, a door close heavily. The
house vibrated to it more dian to a clap of thunder. He stood still,
wishing himself invisible. The room was very chilly. He did not
think he would ever feel like that. But people must be met— they
must be faced— talked to— smiled at. He heard another door, much
nearer— die door of die drawing-room— being opened and flung to
again. He imagined for a moment he would faint. How absurd!
That kind of thing had to be gone through. A voice spoke. He
could not catch the words. Then the voice spoke again, and
footsteps were heard on die first floor landing. Hang it all! Was he
to hear that voice and those footsteps whenever any one spoke or
moved? He thought: "This is like being haunted— I suppose it will
last for a week or so, at least. Till I forget. Forget! Forget!" Some
one was coming up the second flight of stairs. Servant? He
listened; then, suddenly, as though an incredible, frightful
revelation had been shouted to him from a distance, he bellowed
out in the empty room: "What! What!" in such a fiendish tone as
to astonish himself. The footsteps stopped outside die door. He
stood open-mouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst of a
catastrophe. The door-handle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that
the walls were coming apart, that die furniture swayed at him; the
ceiling slanted queerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to
topple over. He caught hold of something, and it was die back of a
chair. So he had reeled against a chair! Oh! Confound it! He
gripped hard.

The flaming butterfly poised between die jaws of die bronze
dragon radiated a glare, a glare that seemed to leap up all at once
into a crude, blinding fierceness, and made it difficult for him to
distinguish plainly the figure of his wife standing upright with her
back to the closed door. He looked at her and could not detect
her breathing. The harsh and violent light was beating on her, and
he was amazed to see her preserve so well the composure of her
upright attitude in that scorching brilliance which, to his eyes,
enveloped her like a hot and consuming mist. He would not have
been surprised if she had vanished in it as suddenly as she had
appeared. He stared and listened; listened for some sound, but die
silence round him was absolute— as though he had in a moment

grown completely deaf as well as dim-eyed. Then his hearing re-
turned, preternaturally sharp. He heard the patter of a rain-shower
on the window panes behind die lowered blinds, and below, far
below, in die artificial abyss of die square, the deadened roll of
wheels and the splashy trotting of a horse. He heard a groan also-
very distinct— in the room— close to his ear.

He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;"
and at the same instant die woman left die door, stepped firmly
across the floor before him, and sat down in a chair. He knew diat
step. There was no doubt about it. She had come back! And he
very nearly said aloud: "Of course!"— such was his sudden and
masterful perception of the indestructible character of her being.
Notiiing could destroy her— and nothing but his own destruction
could keep her away. She was die incarnation of all the short
moments which every man spares out of his life for dreams, for
precious dreams that concrete die most cherished, die most
profitable of his illusions. He peered at her with inward trep-
idation. She was mysterious, significant, full of obscure meaning-
like a symbol. He peered, bending forward, as though he had been
discovering about her tilings he had never seen before.
Unconsciously he made a step towards her— dien another. He saw
her arm make an ample, decided movement— and he stopped. She
had lifted her veil. It was like die lifting of a vizor.

The spell was broken. He experienced a shock as diough he
had been called out of a trance by die sudden noise of an explo-
sion. It was even more startling and more distinct; it was an
infinitely more intimate change, for he had the sensation of having
come into this room only that very moment; of having returned
from very far; he was made aware that some essential part of
himself had in a flash returned into his body, returned finally from
a fierce and lamentable region, from die dwelling-place of unveiled
hearts. He woke up to an amazing infinity of contempt, to a droll
bitterness of wonder, to a disenchanted conviction of safety. He
had a glimpse of the irresistible force, and he saw also the
barrenness of his convictions— of her convictions. It seemed to him
that he could never make a mistake as long as he lived. It was
morally impossible to go wrong. He was not elated by that
certitude; he was dimly uneasy about its price; there was a chill as
of death in this triumph of sound principles, in this victory
snatched under die very shadow of disaster.

The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as die
instantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting meteor vanishes on the
profound blackness of the sky; it was die faint flicker of a painful
thought, gone as soon as perceived, diat nothing but her presence-
after all— had the power to recall him to himself. He stared at her.
She sat widi her hands on her lap, looking down; and he noticed
diat her boots were dirty, her skirts wet and splashed, as diough

she had been driven back there by a blind fear through a waste of
mud. He was indignant, amazed and shocked, but in a natural,
healthy way now; so diat he could control those unprofitable
sentiments by the dictates of cautious self-restraint. The light in the
room had no unusual brilliance now; it was a good light in which
he could easily observe the expression of her face. It was that of
dull fatigue. And the silence that surrounded them was the normal
silence of any quiet house, hardly disturbed by the faint noises of a
respectable quarter of the town. He was very cool— and it was quite
coolly that he thought how much better it would be if neither of
them ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips, with an air of
lassitude in die stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment
she lifted her drooping eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive
stare by a look that had all die formless eloquence of a cry. It
penetrated, it stirred widiout informing; it was die very essence of
anguish stripped of words diat can be smiled at, argued away,
shouted down, disdained. It was anguish naked and unashamed,
the bare pain of existence let loose upon die world in the fleeting
unreserve of a look that had in it an immensity of fatigue, the
scornful sincerity, die black impudence of an extorted confession.
Alvan Hervey was seized with wonder, as though he had seen
something inconceivable; and some obscure part of his being was
ready to exclaim with him: "I would never have believed it! " but an
instantaneous revulsion of wounded susceptibilities checked die
unfinished thought. He felt full of rancorous indignation against
die woman who could look like diis at one. This look probed him;
it tampered with him. It was dangerous to one as would be a hint
of unbelief whispered by a priest in the august decorum of a
temple; and at the same time it was impure, it was disturbing, like a
cynical consolation muttered in the dark, tainting the sorrow, cor-
roding the thought, poisoning the heart. He wanted to ask her
furiously: "Who do you take me for? How dare you look at me
like this?" He felt himself helpless before die hidden meaning of
diat look; he resented it with pained and futile violence as an injury
so secret that it could never, never be redressed. His wish was to
crush her by a single sentence. He was stainless. Opinion was on
his side; morality, men and gods were on his side; law,
conscience— all die world! She had nothing but diat look. And he
could only say:

"How long do you intend to stay here?" Her eyes did not
waver, her lips remained closed; and for any effect of his words he
might have spoken to a dead woman, only that this one breathed
quickly. He was profoundly disappointed by what he had said. It
was a great deception, something in the nature of a treason. He
had deceived himself. It should have been altogether different—
odier words— anotiier sensation. And before his eyes, so fixed diat
at times they saw nothing, she sat apparendy as unconscious as

though she had been alone, sending that look of brazen confession
straight at him— with an air of staring into empty space. He said
significantly:

"Must I go dien?" And he knew he meant nothing of what he
implied.

One of her hands on her lap moved slightly as diough his
words had fallen diere and she had thrown diem off on the floor.
But her silence encouraged him. Possibly it meant remorse—
perhaps fear. Was she thunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her
eyelids dropped. He seemed to understand ever so much—
everything! Very well— but she must be made to suffer. It was due
to him. He understood everydiing, yet he judged it indispensable
to say widi an obvious affection of civility:

"I don't understand— be so good as to . . ."

She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go
away, and it was as though some one had jerked a string attached
to his heart. It hurt. He remained open-mouthed and silent. But
she made an irresolute step towards him, and instinctively he
moved aside. They stood before one anodier, and die fragments of
the torn letter lay between diem— at their feet— like an
insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternal separation! Around
them three other couples stood still and face to face, as if waiting
for a signal to begin some action— a struggle, a dispute, or a dance.

She said: "Don't— Alvan!" and there was somediing that
resembled a warning in the pain of her tone. He narrowed his eyes
as if trying to pierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He
had aspirations after magnanimity, generosity, superiority-
interrupted, however, by flashes of indignation and anxiety-
frightful anxiety to know how far she had gone. She looked down
at die torn paper. Then she looked up, and their eyes met again,
remained fastened together, like an unbreakable bond, like a clasp
of eternal complicity; and die decorous silence, the pervading
quietude of die house, which enveloped this meeting of their
glances became for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid
she would say too much and make magnanimity impossible, while
behind the profound mournfulness of her face diere was a regret—
a regret of tilings done— the regret of delay— the diought diat if she
had only turned back a week sooner— a day sooner— only an hour
sooner. . . . They were afraid to hear again the sound of their
voices; diey did not know what they might say— perhaps something
that could not be recalled; and words are more terrible dian facts.
But the tricky fatality diat lurks in obscure impulses spoke through
Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heard his own voice widi the
excited and skeptical curiosity with which one listens to actors'
voices speaking on die stage in the strain of a poignant situation.

"If you have forgotten anything . . . of course . . . I. . . ."

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled— and

then she also became the mouthpiece of the mysterious force for-
ever hovering near us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering
capricious and uncontrollable, like a gust of wind.

"What is the good of this, Alvan? . . . You know why I came
back. . . . You know that I could not. . .

He interrupted her with irritation.

"Then— what's this?" he asked, pointing downwards at the torn
letter.

"That's a mistake," she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice.

This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at
her. He had half a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile
as involuntary as a grimace of pain.

"A mistake ..." he began slowly, and then found himself
unable to say another word.

"Yes ... it was honest," she said very low, as if speaking to the
memory of a feeling in a remote past.

He exploded.

"Curse your honesty! ... Is there any honesty in all this! . . .
When did you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are
you now? . . . Still honest? ..."

He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick
strides he lost touch of the material world and was whirled
interminably through a kind of empty universe made up of nothing
but fury and anguish, till he came suddenly upon her face— very
close to his. He stopped short, and all at once seemed to
remember something heard ages ago.

"You don't know the meaning of the word," he shouted.

She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything
around him was still. She did not move a hair's breadth; his own
body did not stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two
motionless figures, the house, the town, all the world— and the
trifling tempest of his feelings. The violence of the short tumult
within him had been such as could well have shattered all creation;
and yet nothing was changed. He faced his wife in the familiar
room in his own house. It had not fallen. And right and left all the
innumerable dwellings, standing shoulder to shoulder, had resisted
the shock of his passion, had presented, unmoved, to the
loneliness of his trouble, the grim silence of walls, the
impenetrable and polished discretion of closed doors and
curtained windows. Immobility and silence pressed on him,
assailed him, like two accomplices of the immovable and mute
woman before his eyes. He was suddenly vanquished. He was
shown his impotence. He was soothed by the breath of a corrupt
resignation coming to him through the subtle irony of the
surrounding peace.

He said with villainous composure:

"At any rate it isn't enough for me. I want to know more— if

you re going to stay.

"There is nothing more to tell," she answered sadly.

It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She
went on:

"You wouldn't understand. ..."

"No? "he said quietly. He held himself tight not to burst out
into howls and imprecations.

"I tried to be faithful . . . she began again.

"And this?" he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her
letter.

"This— this is a failure," she said.

"I should think so," he muttered bitterly.

"I tried to be faithful to myself— Alvan— and . . . and honest to
you. . . .

"If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more
to the purpose," he interrupted angrily. "I've been faithful to you—
and you have spoiled my life— both our lives . . ." Then after a
pause the unconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he
raised his voice to ask resentfully, "And, pray, for how long have
you been making a fool of me?"

She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait
for an answer, but went on moving about all the time; now and
then coming up to her, then wandering off restlessly to the other
end of the room.

"I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself— and
that's your honesty!"

"I have told you there is nothing to know," she said, speaking
unsteadily as if in pain. "Nothing of what you suppose. You don't
understand me. This letter is the beginning— and the end."

"The end— this tiling has no end," he clamoured unexpectedly.
"Can't you understand that? I can. . . . The beginning . . ."

He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated
intensity, with a desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that
made him positively hold his breath till he gasped.

"By Heavens!" he said, standing perfectly still in a peering
attitude and within less than a foot from her. "By Heavens!" he
repeated slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary strangeness was a
complete mystery to himself. "By Heavens— I could believe you— I
could believe anything— now!"

He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down
the room with an air of having disburdened himself of the final
pronouncement of his life— of having said something on which he
would not go back, even if he could. She remained as if rooted to
the carpet. Her eyes followed the restless movements of the man,
who avoided looking at her. Her wide stare clung to him,
inquiring, wondering and doubtful.

"But die fellow was for ever sticking in here," he burst out

distractedly. "He made love to you, I suppose— and, and . ." He
lowered his voice. "And— you let him."

"And I let him," she murmured, catching his intonation, so
tiiat her voice sounded unconscious, sounded far off and slavish,
like an echo.

He said twice, "You! You!" violently, then calmed down.
"What could you see in the fellow?" he asked, with unaffected
wonder. "An effeminate, fat ass. What could you . . . Weren't you
happy? Didn't you have all you wanted? Now— frankly; did I
deceive your expectations in any way? Were you disappointed
with our position— or with our prospects— perhaps? You know you
couldn't be— they are much better than you could hope for when
you married me. ..."

He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went
on with animation.

"What could you expect from such a fellow? He's an
outsider— a rank outsider. ... If it hadn't been for my money . . .
do you hear? . . . for my money, he wouldn't know where to turn.
His people won't have anything to do with him. The fellow's no
class— no class at all. He's useful, certainly, that's why I ... I
thought you had enough intelligence to see it. . . . And you . . . No!
It's incredible! What did he tell you? Do you care for no one's
opinion— is there no restraining influence in the world for you—
women? Did you ever give me a thought? I tried to be a good
husband. Did I fail? Tell me— what have I done?"

Carried away by his feelings he took his head in both his hands
and repeated wildly: "What have I done? . . . Tell me! What? . . ."

"Nothing," she said.

"All! You see . . . you can't . . ." he began, triumphandy
walking away; then suddenly, as though he had been flung back at
her by somediing invisible he had met, he spun round and
shouted with exasperation:

"What on earth did you expect me to do?"

Without a word she moved slowly towards die table, and,
sitting down, leaned on her elbow, shading her eyes with her hand.
All that time he glared at her watchfully as if expecting every
moment to find in her deliberate movements an answer to his
question. But he could not read anything, he could gather no hint
of her diought. He tried to suppress his desire to shout, and, after
waiting awhile, said with incisive scorn:

"Did you want me to write absurd verse, to sit and look at you
for hours— to talk to you about your soul? You ought to have
known I wasn't that sort ... I had something better to do. But if
you think I was totally blind ..."

He perceived in a flash that he could remember an infinity of
enlightening occurrences. He could recall ever so many distinct
occasions when he came upon diem; he remembered die absurdly

interrupted gesture of his fat, white hand, the rapt expression of
her face, die glitter of unbelieving eyes; snatches of
incomprehensible conversations not wordi listening to, silences
tiiat had meant nothing at die time and seemed now illuminating
like a burst of sunshine. He remembered all that. He had not been
blind. Oh! No! And to know this was an exquisite relief; it brought
back all his composure.

"I thought it beneadi me to suspect you," he said loftily.

The sound of that sentence evidently possessed some magical
power, because, as soon as he had spoken, he felt wonderfully at
ease; and direcdy afterwards he experienced a flash of joyful
amazement at die discovery tiiat he could be inspired to such
noble and trudiful utterance. He watched the effect of his words.
They caused her to glance at him quickly over her shoulder. He
caught a glimpse of wet eyelashes, of a red cheek with a tear
running down swiftly; and then she turned away again and sat as
before, covering her face widi her hands.

"You ought to be perfectly frank widi me," he said slowly.

"You know everything," she answered indistinctly through her
fingers.

"This letter Yes ... but . . ."

"And I came back," she exclaimed in a stifled voice; "you
know everydiing."

"I am glad of it— for your sake," he said with impressive gravity.
He listened to himself with solemn emotion. It seemed to him that
something inexpressibly momentous was in progress within the
room, tiiat every word and every gesture had the importance of
events preordained from the beginning of all tilings, and summing
up in their finality the whole purpose of creation.

"For your sake," he repeated.

Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he
forgot himself in the contemplation of her hair. Suddenly he gave a
start, as if waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a
whisper—

"Have you been meeting him often?"

"Never!" she cried into die palms of her hands.

This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power
of speech. His lips moved for some time before any sound came.

"You preferred to make love here— under my very nose," he
said furiously. He calmed down instantly, and felt regretfully
uneasy, as though he had let himself down in her estimation by
tiiat outburst. She rose, and with her hand on die back of die chair
confronted him with eyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a
red spot on each of her cheeks.

"When I made up my mind to go to him— I wrote," she said.

"But you didn't go to him," he took up in die same tone.
"How far did you go? What made you come back?"

"I didn't know myself," she murmured. Nothing of her moved
but the lips. He fixed her sternly.

"Did he expect diis? Was he waiting for you?" he asked.

She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he
continued to look at her for a good while without making a sound.
Then, at last—

"And I suppose he is waiting yet?" he asked quietly.

Again she seemed to nod at him. For some reason he felt he
must know die time. He consulted his watch gloomily. Half-past
seven.

"Is he?" he muttered, putting the watch in his pocket. He
looked up at her, and, as if suddenly overcome by a sense of
sinister fun, gave a short, harsh laugh, directly repressed.

"No! It's die most unheard! . . ." he mumbled while she stood
before him biting her lower lip, as if plunged in deep thought. He
laughed again in one low burst that was as spiteful as an
imprecation. He did not know why he felt such an overpowering
and sudden distaste for the facts of existence— for facts in general-
such an immense disgust at die thought of all the many days
already lived through. He was wearied. Thinking seemed a labour
beyond his strength. He said—

"You deceived me— now you make a fool of him. . . . It's awful!
Why?"

"I deceived myself!" she exclaimed.

"Oh! Nonsense!" he said impatiently.

"I am ready to go if you wish it," she went on quickly. "It was
due to you— to be told— to know. No! I could not!" she cried, and
stood still wringing her hands stealthily.

"I am glad you repented before it was too late," he said in a
dull tone and looking at his boots. "I am glad . . . some spark of
better feeling," he muttered, as if to himself. He lifted up his head
after a moment of brooding silence. "I am glad to see that there is
some sense of decency left in you," he added a little louder.
Looking at her he appeared to hesitate, as if estimating the
possible consequences of what he wished to say, and at last blurted
out—

"After all, I loved you. . . ."

"I did not know," she whispered.

"Good God!" he cried. "Why do you imagine I married you?"

The indelicacy of his obtuseness angered her.

"All— why?" she said through her teeth. He appeared
overcome with horror, and watched her lips intently as though in
fear.

"I imagined many tilings," she said slowly, and paused. He
watched, holding his breath. At last she went on musingly, as if
thinking aloud: "I tried to understand. I tried honestly. . . . Why? .
. . To do the usual thing— I suppose. . . . To please yourself."

He walked away smartly, and when he came back, close to her,
he had a flushed face.

"You seemed pretty well pleased too— at the time," he hissed,
with scathing fury. "I needn't ask whether you loved me."

"I know now I was perfectly incapable of such a thing," she
said calmly. "If I had, perhaps you would not have married me.

"It's very clear I would not have done it if I had known you— as
I know you now." He seemed to see himself proposing to her—
ages ago. They were strolling up the slope of a lawn. Groups of
people were scattered in sunshine. The shadows of leafy boughs
lay still on the short grass. The coloured sunshades far off, passing
between trees, resembled deliberate and brilliant butterflies
moving without a flutter. Men smiling amiably, or else very grave,
within the impeccable shelter of their black coats, stood by the side
of women who, clustered in clear summer toilettes, recalled all the
fabulous tales of enchanted gardens where animated flowers smile
at bewitched knights. There was a sumptuous serenity in it all, a
thin, vibrating excitement, the perfect security, as of an invincible
ignorance, that evoked within him a transcendent belief in felicity
as die lot of all mankind, a recklessly picturesque desire to get
promptly something for himself only, out of that splendour
unmarred by any shadow of a thought. The girl walked by his side
across an open space; no one was near, and suddenly he stood
still, as if inspired, and spoke. He remembered looking at her pure
eyes, at her candid brow; he remembered glancing about quickly
to see if they were being observed, and thinking that nothing could
go wrong in a world of so much charm, purity, and distinction. He
was proud of it. He was one of its makers, of its possessors, of its
guardians, of its extollers. He wanted to grasp it solidly, to get as
much gratification as he could out of it; and in view of its
incomparable quality, of its unstained atmosphere, of its nearness
to the heaven of its choice, this gust of brutal desire seemed the
most noble of aspirations. In a second he lived again through all
these moments, and then all the pathos of his failure presented
itself to him with such vividness that there was a suspicion of tears
in his tone when he said almost unthinkingly, "My God! I did love
you!

She seemed touched by the emotion of his voice. Her lips
quivered a little, and she made one faltering step towards him, put-
ting out her hands in a beseeching gesture, when she perceived,
just in time, that being absorbed by the tragedy of his life he had
absolutely forgotten her very existence. She stopped, and her
outstretched arms fell slowly. He, with his features distorted by the
bitterness of his thought, saw neither her movement nor her
gesture. He stamped his foot in vexation, rubbed his head— then
exploded.

"What the devil am I to do now?"

He was still again. She seemed to understand, and moved to
die door firmly.

"It's very simple— I'm going," she said aloud.

At the sound of her voice he gave a start of surprise, looked at
her wildly, and asked in a piercing tone—

"You. . . . Where? To him?"

"No— alone— goodbye . "

The door-handle rattled under her groping hand as though she
had been trying to get out of some dark place.

"No— stay!" he cried.

She heard him faindy. He saw her shoulder touch die lintel of
die door. She swayed as if dazed. There was less than a second of
suspense while they both felt as if poised on the very edge of moral
annihilation, ready to fall into some devouring nowhere. Then,
almost simultaneously, he shouted, "Come back!" and she let go
the handle of die door. She turned round in peaceful desperation
like one who deliberately has dirown away die last chance of life;
and, for a moment, die room she faced appeared terrible, and
dark, and safe— like a grave.

He said, very hoarse and abrupt: "It can't end like this. ... Sit
down;" and while she crossed the room again to die low-backed
chair before the dressing-table, he opened die door and put his
head out to look and listen. The house was quiet. He came back
pacified, and asked—

"Do you speak the truth?"

She nodded.

"You have lived a lie, diough," he said suspiciously.

"All! You made it so easy," she answered.

"You reproach me— me!"

"How could I?" she said; "I would have you no other— now."

"What do you mean by ..." he began, then checked himself,
and without waiting for an answer went on, "I won't ask any
questions. Is this letter the worst of it?"

She had a nervous movement of her hands.

"I must have a plain answer," he said hotly.

"Then, no! The worst is my coming back."

There followed a period of dead silence, during which they
exchanged searching glances.

He said audioritatively—

"You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged.
You are beside yourself, or you would not say such things. You
can't control yourself. Even in your remorse ..." He paused a
moment, then said with a doctoral air: "Self-restraint is everything
in life, you know. It's happiness, it's dignity . . . it's everydiing."

She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went
on watching anxiously to see die effect of his words. Nothing
satisfactory happened. Only, as he began to speak again, she

covered her face with hoth her hands.

"You see where die want of self-restraint leads to. Pain-
humiliation— loss of respect— of friends, of everything that ennobles
life, diat . . . All kinds of horrors," he concluded abruptly.

She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as
though he had been concentrating the melancholy thoughts
evoked by the sight of that abased woman. His eyes became fixed
and dull. He was profoundly penetrated by the solemnity of the
moment; he felt deeply the greatness of the occasion. And more
than ever the walls of his house seemed to enclose the sacredness
of ideals to which he was about to offer a magnificent sacrifice. He
was die high priest of that temple, the severe guardian of formulas,
of rites, of the pure ceremonial concealing die black doubts of life.
And he was not alone. Other men too— the best of them— kept
watch and ward by die hearthstones diat were die altars of that
profitable persuasion. He understood confusedly that he was part
of an immense and beneficent power, which had a reward ready
for every discretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of si-
lence; he was protected by an indestructible faith diat would last
for ever, that would withstand unshaken all die assaults— the loud
execrations of apostates, and the secret weariness of its confessors!
He was in league with a universe of untold advantages. He
represented die moral strength of a beautiful reticence diat could
vanquish all the deplorable crudities of life— fear, disaster, sin-
even deadi itself. It seemed to him he was on the point of
sweeping triumphantly away all die illusory mysteries of existence.
It was simplicity itself.

"I hope you see now the folly— the utter folly of wickedness,"
he began in a dull, solemn manner. "You must respect the
conditions of your life or lose all it can give you. All! Everything!"

He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of
his clothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn grief, repeated die
wide gesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity
of moral sweetness, embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole
house, all die crowd of houses outside, all die flimsy and
inscrutable graves of die living, with their doors numbered like die
doors of prison-cells, and as impenetrable as the granite of
tombstones.

Yes! Restraint, duty, fidelity— unswerving fidelity to what is
expected of you. This— only diis— secures die reward, die peace.
Everything else we should labour to subdue— to destroy. It's
misfortune; it's disease. It is terrible— terrible. We must not know
anything about it— we needn't. It is our duty to ourselves— to others.
You do not live all alone in die world— and if you have no respect
for the dignity of life, others have. Life is a serious matter. If you
don't conform to die highest standards you are no one— it's a kind
of death. Didn't this occur to you? You've only to look round you

to see the truth of what I am saying. Did you live without noticing
anything, without understanding anything? From a child you had
examples before your eyes— you could see daily die beauty, the
blessings of morality, of principles. . . ."

His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes
were still, his stare exalted and sullen; his face was set, was hard,
was woodenly exulting over the grim inspiration that secretly
possessed him, seethed within him, lifted him up into a stealthy
frenzy of belief. Now and then he would stretch out his right arm
over her head, as it were, and he spoke down at that sinner from a
height, and with a sense of avenging virtue, with a profound and
pure joy as though he could from his steep pinnacle see every
weighty w r ord strike and hurt like a punishing stone.

"Rigid principles— adherence to what is right," he finished after
a pause.

"What is right?" she said indistinctly, without uncovering her
face.

"Your mind is diseased!" he cried, upright and austere. "Such
a question is rot— utter rot. Look round you— there's your answer, if
you only care to see. Nothing that outrages the received beliefs can
be right. Your conscience tells you that. They are the received
beliefs because they are the best, the noblest, the only possible.
They survive. ..."

He could not help noticing with pleasure the philosophic
breadth of his view, but he could not pause to enjoy it, for his
inspiration, the call of august truth, carried him on.

"You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has
made you what you are. Be true to it. That's duty— that's honour-
that' s honesty."

He felt a great glow within him, as though he had sw r allow r ed
something hot. He made a step nearer. She sat up and looked at
him with an ardour of expectation that stimulated his sense of the
supreme importance of that moment. And as if forgetting himself
he raised his voice very much.

'"What's right?' you ask me. Think only. What would you
have been if you had gone off with that infernal vagabond? . . .
What would you have been? . . . You! My wife! . . ."

He caught sight of himself in the pier glass, drawn up to his full
height, and with a face so white that his eyes, at the distance,
resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about
to launch imprecations, with his arms uplifted above her bowed
head. He w r as ashamed of that unseemly posture, and put his
hands in his pockets hurriedly. She murmured faintly, as if to
herself—

"All! What am I now?"

"As it happens you are still Mrs. Alvan Hervey— uncommonly
lucky for you, let me tell you," he said in a conversational tone. He

walked up to die furthest comer of the room, and, turning back,
saw her sitting very upright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with
a lost, unswerving gaze of her eyes which stared unwinking, like the
eyes of die blind, at the crude gas flame, blazing and still, between
the jaws of die bronze dragon.

He came up quite close to her, and straddling his legs a little ,
stood looking down at her face for some time without taking his
hands out of his pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his
mind a heap of words, piecing his next speech out of an
overpowering abundance of thoughts.

"You've tried me to the utmost," he said at last; and as soon as
he said these words he lost his moral footing, and felt himself
swept away from his pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment
against the bungling creature that had come so near to spoiling his
life. "Yes; I've been tried more dian any man ought to be," he
went on with righteous bitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed
you to? . . . What possessed you? . . . Write such a . . . After five
years of perfect happiness! Ton my word, no one would believe. .
. . Didn't you feel you couldn't? Because you couldn't ... it was
impossible— you know. Wasn't it? Think. Wasn't it?"

"It was impossible," she whispered obediently.

This submissive assent given with such readiness did not
soothe him, did not elate him; it gave him, inexplicably, diat sense
of terror we experience when in die midst of conditions we had
learned to think absolutely safe we discover all at once die pres-
ence of a near and unsuspected danger. It was impossible, of
course! He knew it. She knew it. She confessed it. It was
impossible! That man knew it too— as well as any one; couldn't
help knowing it. And yet diose two had been engaged in a
conspiracy against his peace— in a criminal enterprise for which
there could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There
could not be! There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With a
short thrill he saw himself an exiled, forlorn figure in a realm of
ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nodiing could be foreseen,
foretold— guarded against. And the sensation was intolerable, had
something of die widiering horror that may be conceived as fol-
lowing upon the utter extinction of all hope. In the flash of thought
the dishonouring episode seemed to disengage itself from
everything actual, from earthly conditions, and even from eardily
suffering; it became purely a terrifying knowledge, an annihilating
knowledge of a blind and infernal force. Somediing desperate and
vague, a flicker of an insane desire to abase himself before the
mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercy in some way, passed
through his mind; and then came the idea, the persuasion, the
certitude, diat die evil must be forgotten— must be resolutely
ignored to make life possible; that the knowledge must be kept out
of mind, out of sight, like the knowledge of certain deadi is kept

out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened himself inwardly for
the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazingly
feasible, if one only kept strictly to facts, gave one's mind to their
perplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a
long silence, he cleared his throat warningly, and said in a steady
voice—

"I am glad you feel this . . . uncommonly glad . . . you felt this
in time. For, don't you see . . . Unexpectedly he hesitated.

"Yes ... I see," she murmured.

"Of course you would," he said, looking at the carpet and
speaking like one who thinks of something else. He lifted his head.
"I cannot believe— even after this— even after this— that you are
altogether— altogether . . . other than what I thought you. It seems
impossible— to me."

"And to me," she breathed out.

"Now— yes," he said, "but this morning? And to-morrow? . . .
This is what ..."

He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly.
Every train of thought seemed to lead into the hopeless realm of
ungovernable folly, to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces
that must be ignored. He said rapidly—

"My position is very painful— difficult ... I feel ..."

He looked at her fixedly with a pained air, as though frightfully
oppressed by a sudden inability to express his pent-up ideas.

"I am ready to go," she said very low. "I have forfeited
everything ... to learn ... to learn ..."

Her chin fell on her breast; her voice died out in a sigh. He
made a slight gesture of impatient assent.

"Yes! Yes! It's all very well ... of course. Forfeited— ah!
Morally forfeited— only morally forfeited ... if I am to believe you

She startled him by jumping up.

"Oh! I believe, I believe," he said hastily, and she sat down as
suddenly as she had got up. He went on gloomily—

"I've suffered— I suffer now. You can't understand how much.
So much that when you propose a parting I almost think. . . . But
no. There is duty. You've forgotten it; I never did. Before heaven,
I never did. But in a horrid exposure like this the judgment of
mankind goes astray— at least for a time. You see, you and I— at
least I feel that— you and I are one before the world. It is as it
should be. The world is right— in the main— or else it couldn't be—
couldn't be— what it is. And we are part of it. We have our duty
to— to our fellow beings who don't want to ... to ... er."

He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her
lips were slightly parted. He went on mumbling—

"... Pain. . . . Indignation. . . . Sure to misunderstand. I've
suffered enough. And if there has been nothing irreparable— as you

assure me . . . then ..."

"Alvan!" she cried.

"What?" he said morosely. He gazed down at her for a
moment with a sombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at the devasta-
tion of some natural disaster.

"Then," he continued after a short pause, "die best diing is . . .
the best for us . . . for every one. . . . Yes . . . least pain— most
unselfish. . . ." His voice faltered, and she heard only detached
words. ". . . Duty. . . . Burden. . . . Ourselves. . . . Silence."

A moment of perfect stillness ensued.

"This is an appeal I am making to your conscience," he said
suddenly, in an explanatory tone, "not to add to the wretchedness
of all this: to try loyally and help me to live it down somehow.
Without any reservations— you know. Loyally! You can't deny I've
been cruelly wronged and— after all— my affection deserves . . ." He
paused with evident anxiety to hear her speak.

"I make no reservations," she said mournfully. "How could I?
I found myself out and came back to . . ." her eyes flashed
scornfully for an instant "... to what— to what you propose. You
see ... I ... I can be trusted . . . now."

He listened to every word with profound attention, and when
she ceased seemed to wait for more.

"Is that all you've got to say?" he asked.

She was startled by his tone, and said faintly—

"I spoke the truth. What more can I say?"

"Confound it! You might say something human," he burst out.
"It isn't being truthful; it's being brazen— if you want to know. Not a
word to show you feel your position, and— and mine. Not a single
word of acknowledgment, or regret— or remorse . . . or . . .
something."

"Words!" she whispered in a tone that irritated him. He
stamped his foot.

"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Words? Yes, words. Words
mean something— yes— they do— for all this infernal affectation.
They mean something to me— to everybody— to you. What the
devil else did you use to express those sentiments— sentiments-
pah!— which made you forget me, duty, shame!" . . . He foamed at
the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury.
"Did you two talk only with your eyes?" he spluttered savagely.
She rose.

"I can't bear this," she said, trembling from head to foot. "I am
going."

They stood facing one another for a moment.

"Not you," he said, with conscious roughness, and began to
walk up and down the room. She remained very still with an air of
listening anxiously to her own heartbeats, then sank down on the
chair slowly, and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength.

"You misunderstand everything I say," he began quietly, "but I
prefer to think that— just now— you are not accountable for your
actions." He stopped again before her. "Your mind is unhinged,"
he said, with unction. "To go now would be adding crime— yes,
crime— to folly. I'll have no scandal in my life, no matter what's the
cost. And why? You are sure to misunderstand me— but I'll tell
you. As a matter of duty. Yes. But you're sure to misunderstand
me— recklessly. Women always do— they are too— too narrow-
minded."

He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn't even
look at him; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who sus-
pects he is unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating
sensation he recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his
words excited his thoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he
had glimpses now and then of the inexpugnable rock of his
convictions, towering in solitary grandeur above the unprofitable
waste of errors and passions.

"For it is self-evident," he went on, with anxious vivacity, "it is
self-evident that, on the highest ground, we haven't the right— no,
we haven't the right to intrude our miseries upon those who— who
naturally expect better things from us. Every one wishes his own
life and the life around him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a
scandal amongst people of our position is disastrous for the
morality— a fatal influence— don't you see— upon the general tone of
the class— very important— the most important, I verily believe, in—
in the community. I feel this— profoundly. This is the broad view.
In time you'll give me . . . when you become again the woman I
loved— and trusted. . . ."

He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in a
completely changed voice said, 'Tor I did love and trust you"— and
again was silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her
eyes.

"You'll give me credit for— for— my motives. It's mainly loyalty
to— to the larger conditions of our life— where you— you! of all
women— failed. One doesn't usually talk like this— of course— but in
this case you'll admit. . . . And consider— the innocent suffer with
the guilty. The world is pitiless in its judgments. Unfortunately
there are always those in it who are only too eager to
misunderstand. Before you and before my conscience I am
guiltless, but any— any disclosure would impair my usefulness in
the sphere— in the larger sphere in which I hope soon to ... I
believe you fully shared my views in that matter— I don't want to
say any more . . . on— on that point— but, believe me, true unselfish-
ness is to bear one's burdens in— in silence. The ideal must— must
be preserved— for others, at least. It's clear as daylight. If I've a— a
loathsome sore, to gratuitously display it would be abominable-
abominable! And often in life— in the highest conception of life—

outspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less than
criminal. Temptation, you know, excuses no one. There is no such
thing really if one looks steadily to one's welfare— which is
grounded in duty. But there are the weak." . . . His tone became
ferocious for an instant. . . . "And there are the fools and the
envious— especially for people in our position. I am guiltless of this
terrible— terrible . . . estrangement; but if there has been nothing
irreparable." . . . Something gloomy, like a deep shadow passed
over his face. . . . "Nothing irreparable— you see even now I am
ready to trust you implicitly— then our duty is clear."

He looked down. A change came over his expression, and
straightway from the outward impetus of his loquacity he passed
into the dull contemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not
without some wonder, he had so recently been able to discover
within himself. During this profound and soothing communion
with his innermost beliefs he remained staring at the carpet, with a
portentously solemn face and with a dull vacuity of eyes that
seemed to gaze into the blankness of an empty hole. Then,
without stirring in the least, he continued:

"Yes. Perfectly clear. I've been tried to the utmost, and I can't
pretend that, for a time, the old feelings— the old feelings are not. .
." He sighed. . . . "But I forgive you. ..."

She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In
his profound scrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing. And there
was silence, silence within and silence without, as though his words
had stilled the beat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the
house had stood alone— the only dwelling upon a deserted earth.

He lifted his head and repeated solemnly:

"I forgive you . . . from a sense of duty— and in the hope ..."

He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but
also destroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of
a reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't
understand whence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened,
the tear-stained, dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and
with her head thrown over the back of the seat. He thought the
piercing noise was a delusion. But another shrill peal followed by a
deep sob and succeeded by another shriek of mirth positively
seemed to tear him out from where he stood. He bounded to the
door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought: that's no
good. . . . "Stop this!" he cried, and perceived with alarm that he
could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming. He
darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with his
hands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touch
her as though she had been on fire. He shouted, "Enough of this!"
like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting
eyes; then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he
disappeared in a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished

suddenly from before her. For a time the woman gasped and
laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room.

He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in
his hand. He stammered:

"Hysterics— Stop— They will hear— Drink this." She laughed at
the ceiling. "Stop this!" he cried. "Ah!"

He flung tire water in her face, putting into the action all tire
secret brutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have been
perfectly excusable— in any one— to send the tumbler after the
water. He restrained himself, but at tire same time was so con-
vinced nothing could stop the horror of those mad shrieks that,
when the first sensation of relief came, it did not even occur to him
to doubt the impression of having become suddenly deaf. When,
next moment, he became sure that she was sitting up, and really
very quiet, it was as though everything— men, tilings, sensations,
had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful. He could not
take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, tire possibility
of her beginning again; for, tire experience, however
contemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of
a mysterious terror. Her face was streaming with water and tears;
there was a wisp of hair on her forehead, another stuck to her
cheek; her hat was on one side, undecorously tilted; her soaked
veil resembled a sordid rag festooning her forehead. There was an
utter unreserve in her aspect, an abandonment of safeguards, that
ugliness of truth which can only be kept out of daily life by
unremitting care for appearances. He did not know why, looking
at her, he thought suddenly of to-morrow, and why the drought
called out a deep feeling of unutterable, discouraged weariness— a
fear of facing the succession of days. To-morrow! It was as far as
yesterday. Ages elapsed between sunrises— sometimes. He scanned
her features like one looks at a forgotten country. They were not
distorted— he recognised landmarks, so to speak; but it was only a
resemblance that he could see, not the woman of yesterday— or was
it, perhaps, more than the woman of yesterday? Who could tell?
Was it something new? A new expression— or a new shade of
expression? or something deep— an old truth unveiled, a
fundamental and hidden truth— some unnecessary, accursed
certitude? He became aware that he was trembling very much, that
he had an empty tumbler in his hand— that time was passing. Still
looking at her with lingering mistrust he reached towards the table
to put the glass down and was startled to feel it apparently go
through the wood. He had missed the edge. The surprise, the
slight jingling noise of the accident annoyed him beyond
expression. He turned to her irritated.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked grimly.

She passed her hand over her face and made an attempt to get
up.

"You're not going to be absurd again," he said. "Ton my soul,
I did not know you could forget yourself to that extent." He didn't
try to conceal his physical disgust, because he believed it to be a
purely moral reprobation of ever} 7 unreserve, of anything in die
nature of a scene. "I assure you— it was revolting," he went on. He
stared for a moment at her. "Positively degrading," he added with
insistence.

She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He
started forward instinctively. She caught hold of the back of the
chair and steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each
other wide-eyed, uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the
reality of tilings with relief and wonder, as though just awakened
after tossing through a long night of fevered dreams.

"Pray, don't begin again," he said hurriedly, seeing her open
her lips. "I deserve some little consideration— and such
unaccountable behaviour is painful to me. I expect better tilings. . .
. I have the right. ..."

She pressed both her hands to her temples.

"Oh, nonsense!" he said sharply. "You are perfectly capable of
coming down to dinner. No one should even suspect; not even the
servants. No one! No one! ... I am sure you can."

She dropped her arms; her face twitched. She looked straight
into his eyes and seemed incapable of pronouncing a word. He
frowned at her.

"I— wish— it," he said tyrannically. "For your own sake also. . . ."
He meant to carry that point without any pity. Why didn't she
speak? He feared passive resistance. She must. . . . Make her
come. His frown deepened, and he began to think of some
effectual violence, when most unexpectedly she said in a firm
voice, "Yes, I can," and clutched the chair-back again. He w r as
relieved, and all at once her attitude ceased to interest him. The
important thing w r as that their life would begin again with an every-
day act— with something that could not be misunderstood, that,
thank God, had no moral meaning, no perplexity— and yet w r as
symbolic of their uninterrupted communion in the past— in all the
future. That morning, at that table, they had breakfast together;
and now they would dine. It was all over! What had happened
between could be forgotten— must be forgotten, like things that can
only happen once— death for instance.

"I will w r ait for you," he said, going to the door. He had some
difficulty with it, for he did not remember he had turned the key.
He hated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of
the room made him feel quite ill as, with the consciousness of her
presence behind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it
at last; then in the doorway he glanced over his shoulder to say,
"It's rather late— you know—" and saw her standing where he had
left her, with a face white as alabaster and perfectly still, like a

woman in a trance.

He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any
breathing time, he hardly knew how, he found himself sitting at
table with her. He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be
natural. It seemed to him necessary that deception should begin at
home. The servants must not know— must not suspect. This
intense desire of secrecy; of secrecy dark, destroying, profound,
discreet like a grave, possessed him with the strength of a
hallucination— seemed to spread itself to inanimate objects that had
been the daily companions of his life, affected with a taint of
enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that would stand
for ever between the shamelessness of facts and the indignation of
mankind. Even when— as it happened once or twice— both the
servants left the room together he remained carefully natural,
industriously hungry, laboriously at his ease, as though he had
wanted to cheat the black oak sideboard, the heavy curtains, the
stiff-backed chairs, into the belief of an unstained happiness. He
was mistrustful of his wife's self-control, unwilling to look at her
and reluctant to speak, for, it seemed to him inconceivable that she
should not betray herself by the slightest movement, by the very
first word spoken. Then he thought the silence in die room was
becoming dangerous, and so excessive as to produce the effect of
an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it, as one is anxious to
interrupt an indiscreet confession; but with die memory of that
laugh upstairs he dared not give her an occasion to open her lips.
Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some
unimportant remark. He detached his eyes from die centre of his
plate and felt excited as if on die point of looking at a wonder. And
nothing could be more wonderful than her composure. He was
looking at the candid eyes, at the pure brow, at what he had seen
every evening for years in that place; he listened to the voice that
for five years he had heard every day. Perhaps she was a little
pale— but a healthy pallor had always been for him one of her chief
attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidly set— but that marmoreal
impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as of a wonderful statue
by some great sculptor working under the curse of the gods; that
imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till then
mirrored for him the tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had
thought himself— as a matter of course— die inexpugnable
possessor. Those were the outward signs of her difference from
the ignoble herd that feels, suffers, fails, errs— but has no distinct
value in the world except as a moral contrast to die prosperity of
the elect. He had been proud of her appearance. It had the
perfectly proper frankness of perfection— and now he was shocked
to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke like this, exactly
like this, a year ago, a month ago— only yesterday when she . . .
What went on within made no difference. What did she think?

What meant the pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pure
eyes? What did she think during all these years? What did she
think yesterday— to-day; what would she think tomorrow? He must
find out. . . . And yet how could he get to know? She had been
false to him, to that man, to herself; she was ready to be false— for
him. Always false. She looked lies, breathed lies, lived lies— would
tell lies— always— to the end of life! And he would never know what
she meant. Never! Never! No one could. Impossible to know.

He dropped his knife and fork, brusquely, as though by die
virtue of a sudden illumination he had been made aware of poison
in his plate, and became positive in his mind that he could never
swallow another morsel of food as long as he lived. The dinner
went on in a room diat had been steadily growing, from some
cause, hotter than a furnace. He had to drink. He drank time after
time, and, at last, recollecting himself, was frightened at the
quantity, till he perceived that what he had been drinking was
water— out of two different wine glasses; and the discovered
unconsciousness of his actions affected him painfully. He was
disturbed to find himself in such an unhealthy state of mind.
Excess of feeling— excess of feeling; and it was part of his creed that
any excess of feeling was unhealthy— morally unprofitable; a taint
on practical manhood. Her fault. Entirely her fault. Her sinful self-
forgetfulness was contagious. It made him think thoughts he had
never had before; thoughts disintegrating, tormenting, sapping to
the very core of life— like mortal disease; thoughts that bred the
fear of air, of sunshine, of men— like the whispered news of a pesti-
lence.

The maids served without noise; and to avoid looking at his
wife and looking within himself, he followed with his eyes first one
and then the other without being able to distinguish between them.
They moved silently about, without one being able to see by what
means, for their skirts touched the carpet all round; they glided
here and there, receded, approached, rigid in black and white,
with precise gestures, and no life in their faces, like a pair of
marionettes in mourning; and their air of wooden unconcern
struck him as unnatural, suspicious, irremediably hostile. That
such people's feelings or judgment could affect one in any way,
had never occurred to him before. He understood they had no
prospects, no principles— no refinement and no power. But now
he had become so debased that he could not even attempt to
disguise from himself his yearning to know the secret thoughts of
his servants. Several times he looked up covertly at the faces of
those girls. Impossible to know. They changed his plates and
utterly ignored his existence. What impenetrable duplicity.
Women— nothing but women round him. Impossible to know. He
experienced that heart-probing, fiery sense of dangerous
loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage of a solitary

adventurer in an unexplored country. The sight of a man's face-
he felt— of any man's face, would have been a profound relief. One
would know then— something— could understand. . . . He decided
he must have men servants. He would engage a buder as soon as
possible. And then the end of diat dinner— which had seemed to
have been going on for hours— the end came, taking him violendy
by surprise, as though he had expected in die natural course of
events to sit at that table for ever and ever.

But upstairs in the drawing-room he became the victim of a
restless fate, that would, on no account, permit him to sit down.
She had sunk on a low easy-chair, and taking up from a small table
at her elbow a fan widi ivory leaves, shaded her face from the fire.
The coals glowed without a flame; and upon the red glow the
vertical bars of die grate stood out at her feet, black and curved,
like the charred ribs of a consumed sacrifice. Far off, a lamp
perched on a slim brass rod, burned under a wide shade of
crimson silk: die centre, within the shadows of the large room, of a
fiery twilight diat had in the warm quality of its tint something
delicate, refined and infernal. His soft footfalls and die subdued
beat of die clock on the high mantel-piece answered each other
regularly— as if time and himself, engaged in a measured contest,
had been pacing together through the infernal delicacy of twilight
towards a mysterious goal.

He walked from one end of die room to the odier widiout a
pause, like a traveler who, at night, hastens doggedly upon an
interminable journey. Now and then he glanced at her. Impossible
to know. The gross precision of that thought expressed to his
practical mind something illimitable and infinitely profound, the
all-embracing subtlety of a feeling, the eternal origin of his pain.
This woman had accepted him, had abandoned him— had
returned to him. And of all this he would never know the trudi.
Never. Not till death— not after— not on judgment day when all
shall be disclosed, thoughts and deeds, rewards and punishments,
but the secret of hearts alone shall return, for ever unknown, to the
Inscrutable Creator of good and evil, to the Master of doubts and
impulses.

He stood still to look at her. Thrown back and with her face
turned away from him, she did not stir— as if asleep. What did she
think? What did she feel? And in the presence of her perfect
stillness, in the breathless silence, he felt himself insignificant and
powerless before her, like a prisoner in chains. The fury of his
impotence called out sinister images, that faculty of tormenting
vision, which in a moment of anguishing sense of wrong induces a
man to mutter threats or make a menacing gesture in the solitude
of an empty room. But the gust of passion passed at once, left him
trembling a little, with the wondering, reflective fear of a man who
has paused on the very verge of suicide. The serenity of truth and

the peace of death can be only secured through a largeness of
contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He found
he did not want to know. Better not. It was all over. It was as if it
hadn't been. And it was very necessary for both of them, it was
morally right, that nobody should know.

He spoke suddenly, as if concluding a discussion.

"The best thing for us is to forget all diis."

She started a little and shut the fan with a click.

"Yes, forgive— and forget," he repeated, as if to himself.

"I'll never forget," she said in a vibrating voice. "And I'll never
forgive myself

"But I, who have nothing to reproach myself ..." he began,
making a step towards her. She jumped up.

"I did not come back for your forgiveness/' she exclaimed
passionately, as if clamouring against an unjust aspersion.

He only said "oh!" and became silent. He could not
understand this unprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and
certainly was very far from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of
something resembling emotion in the tone of his last words had
caused that uncontrollable burst of sincerity. It completed his
bewilderment, but he was not at all angry now. He was as if be-
numbed by the fascination of the incomprehensible. She stood
before him, tall and indistinct, like a black phantom in the red
twilight. At last poignantly uncertain as to what would happen if he
opened his lips, he muttered:

"But if my love is strong enough . . ." and hesitated.

He heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had
broken her fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell, one after another,
without a sound, on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped
to pick them up. While he groped at her feet it occurred to him
that die woman there had in her hands an indispensable gift which
nothing else on earth could give; and when he stood up he was
penetrated by an irresistible belief in an enigma, by the conviction
that within his reach, and passing away from him was the very
secret of existence— its certitude, immaterial and precious! She
moved to die door, and he followed at her elbow, casting about for
a magic word that would make die enigma clear, that would
compel die surrender of die gift. And diere is no such word! The
enigma is only made clear by sacrifice, and the gift of heaven is in
the hands of every man. But they had lived in a world that abhors
enigmas, and cares for no gifts but such as can be obtained in the
street. She was nearing die door. He said hurriedly:

"Ton my word, I loved you— I love you now."

She stopped for an almost imperceptible moment to give him
an indignant glance, and dien moved on. That feminine penetra-
tion—so clever and so tainted by die eternal instinct of self-defence,
so ready to see an obvious evil in everything it cannot understand—

filled her with bitter resentment against both the men who could
offer to the spiritual and tragic strife of her feelings nothing but the
coarseness of their abominable materialism. In her anger against
her own ineffectual self-deception she found hate enough for them
both. What did they want? What more did this one want? And as
her husband faced her again, with his hand on the door-handle,
she asked herself whether he was unpardonably stupid, or simply
ignoble.

She said, nervously, and very fast:

"You are deceiving yourself. You never loved me. You wanted
a wife— some woman— any woman that would think, speak, and
behave in a certain way— in a way you approved. You loved your-
self."

"You won't believe me?" he asked slowly.

"If I had believed you loved me," she began passionately, then
drew in a long breath; and during that pause he heard the steady
beat of blood in his ears. "If I had believed it ... I would never
have come back," she finished recklessly.

He stood looking down as though he had not heard. She
waited. After a moment he opened the door, and, on the landing,
the sightless woman of marble appeared, draped to the chin,
thrusting blindly at them a cluster of lights.

He seemed to have forgotten himself in a meditation so deep
that on the point of going out she stopped to look at him in
surprise. While she had been speaking he had wandered on the
track of the enigma, out of the world of senses into the region of
feeling. What did it matter what she had done, what she had said,
if through the pain of her acts and words he had obtained the word
of the enigma! There can be no life without faith and love— faith in
a human heart, love of a human being! That touch of grace, whose
help once in life is the privilege of the most undeserving, flung
open for him the portals of beyond, and in contemplating there
the certitude immaterial and precious he forgot all the meaningless
accidents of existence: the bliss of getting, the delight of enjoying;
all the protean and enticing forms of the cupidity that rules a
material world of foolish joys, of contemptible sorrows. Faith!—
Love!— the undoubting, clear faith in the truth of a soul— the great
tenderness, deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like the infinite
peace of space above the short tempests of the earth. It was what
he had wanted all his life— but he understood it only then for the
first time. It was through the pain of losing her that the knowledge
had come. She had the gift! She had the gift! And in all the world
she was the only human being that could surrender it to his
immense desire. He made a step forward, putting his arms out, as
if to take her to his breast, and, lifting his head, was met by such a
look of blank consternation that his arms fell as though they had
been struck down by a blow. She started away from him, stumbled

over die threshold, and once on the landing turned, swift and
crouching. The train of her gown swished as it flew round her feet
It was an undisguised panic. She panted, showing her teeth, and
the hate of strength, the disdain of weakness, the eternal pre-
occupation of sex came out like a toy demon out of a box.

"This is odious," she screamed.

He did not stir; but her look, her agitated movements, the
sound of her voice were like a mist of facts thickening between
him and the vision of love and faith. It vanished; and looking at
that face triumphant and scornful, at that white face, stealthy and
unexpected, as if discovered staring from an ambush, he was
coming back slowly to the world of senses. His first clear thought
was: I am married to that woman; and the next: she will give
nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see. But the mem-
ory of die vision, the memory that abides for ever within the seer
made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed by
the touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift."

He turned his back on her, leaving her completely mystified.
And she went upstairs slowly, struggling with a distasteful suspicion
of having been confronted by something more subtle than herself—
more profound than the misunderstood and tragic contest of her
feelings.

He shut die door of die drawing-room and moved at hazard,
alone amongst the heavy shadows and in the fiery twilight as of an
elegant place of perdition. She hadn't the gift— no one had. . . . He
stepped on a book that had fallen off one of the crowded little
tables. He picked up the slender volume, and holding it,
approached the crimson-shaded lamp. The fiery tint deepened of
the cover, and contorted gold letters sprawling all over it in an intri-
cate maze, came out, gleaming redly. "Thorns and Arabesques."
He read it twice, "Thorns and Ar. ..." The other's book of
verses. He dropped it at his feet, but did not feel the slightest pang
of jealousy or indignation. What did he know? . . . What? . . . The
mass of hot coals tumbled down in the grate, and he turned to
look at them. . . . All! That one was ready to give up everything he
had for that woman— who did not come— who had not die faidi, die
love, die courage to come. What did diat man expect, what did he
hope, what did he want? The woman— or die certitude immaterial
and precious! The first unselfish thought he had ever given to any
human being was for diat man who had tried to do him a terrible
wrong. He was not angry. He was saddened by an impersonal
sorrow, by a vast melancholy as of all mankind longing for what
cannot be attained. He felt his fellowship with every man— even
with that man— especially with that man. What did he think now?
Had he ceased to wait— and hope? Would he ever cease to wait
and hope? Would he understand diat the woman, who had no
courage, had not the gift— had not the gift!

The clock began to strike, and the deep-toned vibration filled
the room as though with the sound of an enormous bell tolling far
away. He counted the strokes. Twelve. Another day had begun.
To-morrow had come; the mysterious and lying to-morrow that
lures men, disdainful of love and faith, on and on through the
poignant futilities of life to the fitting reward of a grave. He
counted the strokes, and gazing at the grate seemed to wait for
more. Then, as if called out, left the room, walking firmly.

When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A
bolt was shot— then another. They were locking up— shutting out
his desire and his deception from the indignant criticism of a world
full of noble gifts for those who proclaim themselves without stain
and without reproach. He was safe; and on all sides of his dwelling
senile fears and servile hopes slept, dreaming of success, behind
the severe discretion of doors as impenetrable to the truth within
as the granite of tombstones. A lock snapped— a short chain
rattled. Nobody shall know!

Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear,
and why the day that began presented itself obstinately like the last
day of all— like a to-day without a tomorrow? Yet nothing was
changed, for nobody would know; and all would go on as before—
the getting, the enjoying, the blessing of hunger that is appeased
every day; the noble incentives of unappeasable ambitions. All— all
the blessings of life. All— but the certitude immaterial and pre-
cious—the certitude of love and faith. He believed the shadow of it
had been with him as long as he could remember; that invisible
presence had ruled his life. And now the shadow had appeared
and faded he could not extinguish his longing for the truth of its
substance. His desire of it was naive; it was masterful like the
material aspirations that are the groundwork of existence, but,
unlike these, it was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism of
an idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable, and
dangerous. He went slowly up the stairs. Nobody shall know. The
days would go on and he would go far— very far. If the idea could
not be mastered, fortune could be, men could be— the whole
world. He was dazzled by the greatness of the prospect; the
brutality of a practical instinct shouted to him that only that which
could be had was worth having. He lingered on the steps. The
lights were out in the hall, and a small yellow flame flitted about
down there. He felt a sudden contempt for himself which braced
him up. He went on, but at the door of their room and with his
arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight of stairs below r
tlie head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. His arm
fell. He thought, "I'll w r ait till she is gone"— and stepped back
within the perpendicular folds of a portiere.

He saw her come up gradually, as if ascending from a well. At
every step the feeble flame of the candle swayed before her tired,

young face, and die darkness of die hall seemed to cling to her
black skirt, followed her, rising like a silent flood, as diough die
great night of the world had broken through the discreet reserve of
walls, of closed doors, of curtained windows. It rose over the steps,
it leaped up the walls like an angry wave, it flowed over the blue
skies, over die yellow sands, over the sunshine of landscapes, and
over die pretty pathos of ragged innocence and of meek starvation.
It swallowed up die delicious idyll in a boat and die mutilated
immortality of famous bas-reliefs. It flowed from outside— it rose
higher, in a destructive silence. And, above it, the woman of
marble, composed and blind on die high pedestal, seemed to ward
off the devouring night with a cluster of lights.

He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with
impatience, as if anxious for the coming of a darkness black
enough to conceal a shameful surrender. It came nearer. The
cluster of lights went out. The girl ascended facing him. Behind
her the shadow of a colossal woman danced lightly on die wall. He
held his breadi while she passed by, noiseless and widi heavy
eyelids. And on her track the flowing tide of a tenebrous sea filled
the house, seemed to swirl about his feet, and rising unchecked,
closed silently above his head.

The time had come but he did not open die door. All was still;
and instead of surrendering to die reasonable exigencies of life he
stepped out, with a rebelling heart, into the darkness of die house.
It was die abode of an impenetrable night; as diough indeed die
last day had come and gone, leaving him alone in a darkness diat
has no to-morrow. And looming vaguely below the woman of
marble, livid and still like a patient phantom, held out in die night
a cluster of extinguished lights.

His obedient diought traced for him die image of an
uninterrupted life, the dignity and die advantages of an
uninterrupted success; while his rebellious heart beat violendy
within his breast, as if maddened by the desire of a certitude
immaterial and precious— the certitude of love and faith. What of
the night within his dwelling if outside he could find the sunshine
in which men sow, in which men reap! Nobody would know. The
days, die years would pass, and . . . He remembered diat he had
loved her. The years would pass . . . And dien he diought of her as
we think of die dead— in a tender immensity of regret, in a
passionate longing for the return of idealised perfections. He had
loved her— he had loved her— and he never knew die trudi. . . .
The years would pass in die anguish of doubt. . . . He
remembered her smile, her eyes, her voice, her silence, as diough
he had lost her for ever. The years would pass and he would
always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes: he would always
misbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She
had no gift— she had no gift! What was she? Who was she? . . .

The years would pass; the memory of this hour would grow faint—
and she would share the material serenity of an unblemished life.
She had no love and no faidi for any one. To give her your
thought, your belief, was like whispering your confession over die
edge of the world. Nothing came back— not even an echo.

In the pain of that thought was born his conscience; not diat
fear of remorse which grows slowly, and slowly decays amongst
the complicated facts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing full-
grown, armed and severe out of a tried heart, to combat die secret
baseness of motives. It came to him in a flash that morality is not a
method of happiness. The revelation was terrible. He saw at once
that nothing of what he knew mattered in die least. The acts of
men and women, success, humiliation, dignity, failure— nothing
mattered. It was not a question of more or less pain, of this joy, of
that sorrow. It was a question of truth or falsehood— it was a
question of life or death.

He stood in die revealing night— in the darkness that tries die
hearts, in the night useless for die work of men, but in which their
gaze, undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders
sometimes as far as die stars. The perfect stillness around him had
something solemn in it, but he felt it was the lying solemnity of a
temple devoted to the rites of a debasing persuasion. The silence
within the discreet walls was eloquent of safety but it appeared to
him exciting and sinister, like the discretion of a profitable infamy;
it was the prudent peace of a den of coiners— of a house of ill-fame!
The years would pass— and nobody would know. Never! Not till
deadi— not after. . . .

"Never!" he said aloud to the revealing night.

And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for die
timid eyes of men, shall return, veiled for ever, to the Inscrutable
Creator of good and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses.
His conscience was born— he heard its voice, and he hesitated,
ignoring the strengdi within, die fateful power, the secret of his
heart! It was an awful sacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of
a new belief. He wanted help against himself, against die cruel
decree of salvation. The need of tacit complicity, where it had
never failed him, die habit of years affirmed itself. Perhaps she
would help. . . . He flung the door open and rushed in like a
fugitive.

He was in the middle of die room before he could see
anything but the dazzling brilliance of the light; and then, as if
detached and floating in it on the level of his eyes, appealed die
head of a woman. She had jumped up when he burst into the
room.

For a moment they contemplated each other as if struck dumb
with amazement Her hair streaming on her shoulders glinted like
burnished gold. He looked into the unfathomable candour of her

eyes. Nothing within— nothing— nothing.

He stammered distractedly.

"I want ... I want ... to ... to .. . know. . . ."

On die candid light of the eyes flitted shadows; shadows of
doubt, of suspicion, the ready suspicion of an unquenchable
antagonism, die pitiless mistrust of an eternal instinct of defence;
die hate, die profound, frightened hate of an incomprehensible— of
an abominable emotion intruding its coarse materialism upon die
spiritual and tragic contest of her feelings.

"Alvan ... I won't bear diis ..." She began to pant suddenly,
"I've a right— a right to— to— myself. ..."

He lifted one arm, and appeared so menacing that she stopped
in a fright and shrank back a little.

He stood with uplifted hand. . . . The years would pass— and he
would have to live with diat unfathomable candour where flit
shadows of suspicion and hate. . . . The years would pass— and he
would never know— never trust. . . . The years would pass without
faith and love. . . .

"Can you stand it?" he shouted, as though she could have
heard all his thoughts.

He looked menacing. She thought of violence, of danger— and,
just for an instant, she doubted whether there were splendours
enough on earth to pay die price of such a brutal experience. He
cried again:

"Can you stand it?" and glared as if insane. Her eyes blazed
too. She could not hear the appalling clamour of his thoughts. She
suspected in him a sudden regret, a fresh fit of jealousy, a
dishonest desire of evasion. She shouted back angrily—

"Yes!"

He was shaken where he stood as if by a struggle to break out
of invisible bonds. She trembled from head to foot.

"Well, I can't!" He flung both his arms out, as if to push her
away, and strode from die room. The door swung to with a click.
She made diree quick steps towards it and stood still, looking at
the white and gold panels. No sound came from beyond, not a
whisper, not a sigh; not even a footstep was heard outside on the
thick carpet. It was as diough no sooner gone he had suddenly
expired— as diough he had died diere and his body had vanished
on die instant together with his soul. She listened, with parted lips
and irresolute eyes. Then below, far below her, as if in die entrails
of the eardi, a door slammed heavily; and the quiet house vibrated
to it from roof to foundations, more dian to a clap of thunder.

He never returned.

The Lagoon

THE white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little
house in the stern of the boat, said to the steersman— "We will pass
the night in Arsat's clearing. It is late."

The Malay only grunted, and went on looking fixedly at the
river. The white man rested his chin on his crossed arms and
gazed at the wake of the boat. At the end of the straight avenue of
forests cut by the intense glitter of die river, die sun appealed
unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that shone
smoothly like a band of metal. The forests, sombre and dull, stood
motionless and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot
of big, towering frees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the mud of
die bank, in bunches of leaves enormous and heavy, that hung
unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies. In die stillness of the air
every tree, every leaf, every bough, every tendril of creeper and
every petal of minute blossoms seemed to have been bewitched
into an immobility perfect and final. Nothing moved on the river
but the eight paddles that rose flashing regularly, dipped together
with a single splash; while the steersman swept right and left with a
periodic and sudden flourish of his blade describing a glinting
semicircle above his head. The churned-up water frodied along-
side with a confused murmur. And the white man's canoe,
advancing up stream in the short-lived disturbance of its own
making, seemed to enter die portals of a land from which the very
memory of motion had for ever departed.

The white man, turning his back upon the setting sun, looked
along die empty and broad expanse of the sea-reach. For the last
tiiree miles of its course die wandering, hesitating river, as if
enticed irresistibly by the freedom of an open horizon, flows
straight into die sea, flows straight to the east— to die east diat
harbours both light and darkness. Astern of die boat the repeated
call of some bird, a cry discordant and feeble, skipped along over
the smooth water and lost itself, before it could reach die other
shore, in the breathless silence of the world.

The steersman dug his paddle into die stream, and held hard
with stiffened arms, his body thrown forward. The water gurgled
aloud; and suddenly the long straight reach seemed to pivot on its
centre, the forests swung in a semicircle, and the slanting beams of
sunset touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow,
throwing the slender and distorted shadows of its crew upon die
streaked glitter of die river. The white man turned to look ahead.
The course of die boat had been altered at right-angles to the
stream, and die carved dragonhead of its prow was pointing now at
a gap in the fringing bushes of the bank. It glided through,
brushing die overhanging twigs, and disappeared from die river
like some slim and amphibious creature leaving the water for its

lair in the forests.

The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortuous, fabulously deep;
filled with gloom under the thin strip of pure and shining blue of
the heaven. Immense trees soared up, invisible behind the
festooned draperies of creepers. Here and there, near the glisten-
ing blackness of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed
amongst the tracer} 7 of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and
motionless, like an arrested snake. The short words of the
paddlers reverberated loudly between the thick and sombre walls
of vegetation. Darkness oozed out from between the trees, through
the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind the great fantastic
and unstirring leaves; the darkness, mysterious and invincible; the
darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests.

The men poled in the shoaling water. The creek broadened,
opening out into a wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests
receded from the marshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright green,
reedy grass to frame the reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy
pink cloud drifted high above, trailing the delicate colouring of its
image under the floating leaves and the silvery blossoms of the
lotus. A little house, perched on high piles, appeared black in the
distance. Near it, two tall nibong palms, that seemed to have come
out of the forests in the background, leaned slightly over the
ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad tenderness and care in the
droop of their leafy and soaring heads.

The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, "Arsat is there. I
see his canoe fast between the piles."

The polers ran along the sides of the boat glancing over their
shoulders at the end of the day's journey. They would have pre-
ferred to spend the night somewhere else than on this lagoon of
weird aspect and ghostly reputation. Moreover, they disliked Arsat,
first as a stranger, and also because he who repairs a ruined house,
and dwells in it, proclaims that he is not afraid to live amongst the
spirits that haunt the places abandoned by mankind. Such a man
can disturb the course of fate by glances or words; while his
familiar ghosts are not easy to propitiate by casual wayfarers upon
whom they long to wreak the malice of their human master. White
men care not for such tilings, being unbelievers and in league with
the Father of Evil, who leads them unharmed through the invisible
dangers of this world. To the warnings of the righteous they
oppose an offensive pretence of disbelief. What is there to be
done?

So they thought, throwing their weight on the end of their long
poles. The big canoe glided on swiftly, noiselessly, and smoothly,
towards Arsat's clearing, till, in a great rattling of poles thrown
down, and the loud murmurs of "Allah be praised!" it came with a
gentle knock against the crooked piles below the house.

The boatmen with uplifted faces shouted discordantly, "Arsat!

O Arsat!" Nobody came. The white man began to climb the rude
ladder giving access to the bamboo platform before the house.
The juragan of the boat said sulkily, "We will cook in the sampan,
and sleep on the water."

"Pass my blankets and the basket," said die white man curdy.

He knelt on the edge of die platform to receive the bundle.
Then die boat shoved off, and die white man, standing up, con-
fronted Arsat, who had come out through the low door of his hut.
He was a man young, powerful, with a broad chest and muscular
arms. He had nothing on but his sarong. His head was bare. His
big, soft eyes stared eagerly at die white man, but his voice and
demeanour were composed as he asked, without any words of
greeting—

"Have you medicine, Tuan?"

"No," said die visitor in a startled tone. "No. Why? Is diere
sickness in the house?"

"Enter and see," replied Arsat, in the same calm manner, and
turning short round, passed again through die small doorway. The
white man, dropping his bundles, followed.

In die dim light of die dwelling he made out on a couch of
bamboos a woman stretched on her back under a broad sheet of
red cotton cloth. She lay still, as if dead; but her big eyes, wide
open, glittered in the gloom, staring upwards at die slender rafters,
motionless and unseeing. She was in a high fever, and evidently
unconscious. Her cheeks were sunk slightly, her lips were partly
open, and on the young face diere was die ominous and fixed
expression— the absorbed, contemplating expression of die
unconscious who are going to die. The two men stood looking
down at her in silence.

"Has she been long ill?" asked die traveler.

"I have not slept for five nights," answered the Malay, in a
deliberate tone. "At first she heard voices calling her from the
water and struggled against me who held her. But since the sun of
to-day rose she hears nothing— she hears not me. She sees nodiing.
She sees not me— me!"

He remained silent for a minute, then asked softly—

"Tuan, will she die?"

"I fear so," said die white man sorrowfully. He had known
Arsat years ago, in a far country in times of trouble and danger,
when no friendship is to be despised. And since his Malay friend
had come unexpectedly to dwell in the hut on the lagoon with a
sfrange woman, he had slept many times there, in his journeys up
and down the river. He liked the man who knew how to keep faith
in council and how to fight without fear by die side of his white
friend. He liked him— not so much perhaps as a man likes his
favourite dog— but still he liked him well enough to help and ask
no questions, to diink sometimes vaguely and hazily in the midst of

his own pursuits, about the lonely man and the long-haired woman
with audacious face and triumphant eyes, who lived together
hidden by the forests— alone and feared.

The white man came out of the hut in time to see the
enormous conflagration of sunset put out by the swift and stealthy
shadows that, rising like a black and impalpable vapour above the
tree-tops, spread over the heaven, extinguishing the crimson glow
of floating clouds and the red brilliance of departing daylight. In a
few moments all the stars came out above the intense blackness of
the earth, and the great lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected
lights resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down into the
hopeless and abysmal night of the wilderness. The white man had
some supper out of the basket, then collecting a few sticks that lay
about the platform, made up a small fire, not for warmth, but for
the sake of the smoke, which would keep off the mosquitos. He
wrapped himself in his blankets and sat with his back against the
reed wall of the house, smoking thoughtfully.

Arsat came through the doorway with noiseless steps and
squatted down by the fire. The white man moved his outstretched
legs a little.

"She breathes," said Arsat in a low voice, anticipating the
expected question. "She breathes and burns as if with a great fire.
She speaks not; she hears not— and burns!" He paused for a
moment, then asked in a quiet, incurious tone—

"Tuan . . . will she die?"

The white man moved his shoulders uneasily, and muttered in
a hesitating manner—

"If such is her fate."

"No, Tuan," said Arsat calmly. "If such is my fate. I hear, I see,
I wait. I remember . . . Tuan, do you remember the old days? Do
you remember my brother?"

"Yes," said the white man. The Malay rose suddenly and went
in. The other, sitting still outside, could hear the voice in the hut.
Arsat said: "Hear me! Speak!" His words were succeeded by a
complete silence. "O Diamelen!" he cried suddenly. After that cry
there was a deep sigh. Arsat came out and sank down again in his
old place.

They sat in silence before the fire. There was no sound within
the house, there was no sound near them; but far away on the
lagoon they could hear the voices of the boatmen ringing fitful and
distinct on the calm water. The fire in the bows of the sampan
shone faintly in the distance with a hazy red glow. Then it died out.
The voices ceased. The land and the water slept invisible,
unstirring and mute. It was as though there had been nothing left
in the world but the glitter of stars streaming, ceaseless and vain,
through the black stillness of the night.

The white man gazed straight before him into the darkness

with wide-open eyes. The fear and fascination, the inspiration and
the wonder of death— of death near, unavoidable, and unseen,
soothed die unrest of his race and stirred the most indistinct, the
most intimate of his thoughts. The ever-ready suspicion of evil, the
gnawing suspicion that lurks in our hearts, flowed out into the still-
ness round him— into die stillness profound and dumb, and made
it appear untrustworthy and infamous, like the placid and im-
penetrable mask of an unjustifiable violence. In that fleeting and
powerful disturbance of his being the earth enfolded in the
starlight peace became a shadowy country of inhuman strife, a
battlefield of phantoms terrible and charming, august or ignoble,
struggling ardently for the possession of our helpless hearts. An
unquiet and mysterious country of inextinguishable desires and
fears.

A plaintive murmur rose in the night; a murmur saddening and
startling, as if the great solitudes of surrounding woods had tried to
whisper into his ear the wisdom of their immense and lofty
indifference. Sounds hesitating and vague floated in the air round
him, shaped themselves slowly into words; and at last flowed on
gently in a murmuring stream of soft and monotonous sentences.
He stirred like a man waking up and changed his position slightly.
Arsat, motionless and shadowy, sitting with bowed head under the
stars, was speaking in a low and dreamy tone—

". . . for where can we lay down die heaviness of our trouble
but in a friend's heart? A man must speak of war and of love. You,
Tuan, know r what war is, and you have seen me in time of danger
seek death as other men seek life! A writing may be lost; a lie may
be written; but what die eye has seen is truth and remains in the
mind!"

"I remember," said the white man quietly. Arsat went on with
mournful composure—

"Therefore I shall speak to you of love. Speak in die night.
Speak before both night and love are gone— and die eye of day
looks upon my sorrow and my shame; upon my blackened face;
upon my burnt-up heart."

A sigh, short and faint, marked an almost imperceptible pause,
and then his words flowed on, without a stir, without a gesture.

"After die time of trouble and war was over and you went away
from my country in the pursuit of your desires, which we, men of
die islands, cannot understand, I and my brother became again, as
we had been before, the sword-bearers of die Ruler. You know we
were men of family, belonging to a ruling race, and more fit dian
any to carry on our right shoulder the emblem of power. And in
the time of prosperity Si Dendring showed us favour, as we, in
time of sorrow, had showed to him the faithfulness of our courage.
It was a time of peace. A time of deer-hunts and sock-fights; of idle
talks and foolish squabbles between men whose bellies are full and

weapons are rusty. But the sower watched the young rice-shoots
grow up without fear, and the traders came and went, departed
lean and returned fat into the river of peace. They brought news
too. Brought lies and truth mixed together, so that no man knew
when to rejoice and when to be sorry. We heard from them about
you also. They had seen you here and had seen you there. And I
was glad to hear, for I remembered the stirring times, and I always
remembered you, Tuan, till the time came when my eyes could
see nothing in the past, because they had looked upon the one
who is dying there— in the house."

He stopped to exclaim in an intense whisper, "O Mara bahia!
O Calamity!" then went on speaking a little louder.

"There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother,
Tuan, for one brotiier knows another, and in perfect knowledge is
strength for good or evil. I loved my brother. I went to him and
told him that I could see nothing but one face, hear nothing but
one voice. He told me: 'Open your heart so that she can see what
is in it— and wait. Patience is wisdom. Inchi Midah may die or our
Ruler may throw off his fear of a woman!' ... I waited! . . . You
remember the lady with the veiled face, Tuan, and the fear of our
Ruler before her cunning and temper. And if she wanted her
servant, what could I do? But I fed the hunger of my heart on
short glances and stealthy words. I loitered on the path to the bath-
houses in the daytime, and when the sun had fallen behind the
forest I crept along the jasmine hedges of the women's courtyard.
Unseeing, we spoke to one another through the scent of flowers,
through the veil of leaves, through the blades of long grass that
stood still before our lips; so great was our prudence, so faint was
the murmur of our great longing. The time passed swiftly . . . and
there were whispers amongst women— and our enemies watched—
my brotiier was gloomy, and I began to think of killing and of a
fierce death. . . . We are of a people who take what they want— like
you whites. There is a time when a man should forget loyalty and
respect. Might and authority are given to rulers, but to all men is
given love and strength and courage. My brother said, 'You shall
take her from their midst. We are two who are like one.' And I an-
swered, 'Let it be soon, for I find no warmth in sunlight that does
not shine upon her.' Our time came when the Ruler and all the
great people went to the mouth of the river to fish by torchlight.
There were hundreds of boats, and on the white sand, between the
water and the forests, dwellings of leaves were built for the
households of the Rajahs. The smoke of cooking-fires was like a
blue mist of the evening, and many voices rang in it joyfully. While
they were making the boats ready to beat up the fish, my brother
came to me and said, 'To-night!' I looked to my weapons, and
when the time came our canoe took its place in the circle of boats
carrying the torches. The lights blazed on the water, but behind the

boats there was darkness. When the shouting began and die
excitement made them like mad we dropped out. The water
swallowed our fire, and we floated back to the shore diat was dark
with only here and there die glimmer of embers. We could hear
the talk of slave -girls amongst the sheds. Then we found a place
deserted and silent. We waited die re. She came. She came
running along die shore, rapid and leaving no trace, like a leaf
driven by die wind into die sea. My brother said gloomily, 'Go and
take her; carry her into our boat.' I lifted her in my arms. She
panted Her heart was beating against my breast. I said, 'I take you
from diose people. You came to die cry of my heart, but my arms
take you into my boat against die will of the great!' 'It is right,' said
my brodier. 'We are men who take what we want and can hold it
against many. We should have taken her in daylight.' I said, 'Let us
be off; for since she was in my boat I began to think of our Ruler's
many men. 'Yes. Let us be off said my brodier. 'We are cast out
and this boat is our country now— and the sea is our refuge.' He
lingered with his foot on die shore, and I entreated him to hasten,
for I remembered die strokes of her heart against my breast and
thought diat two men cannot withstand a hundred. We left, pad-
dling downstream close to the bank; and as we passed by the creek
where diey were fishing, die great shouting had ceased, but die
murmur of voices was loud like die humming of insects flying at
noonday. The boats floated, clustered togedier, in the red light of
torches, under a black roof of smoke; and men talked of their
sport. Men that boasted, and praised, and jeered— men that would
have been our friends in die morning, but on that night were
already our enemies. We paddled swiftly past. We had no more
friends in the country of our birth. She sat in the middle of die
canoe with covered face; silent as she is now; unseeing as she is
now— and I had no regret at what I was leaving because I could
hear her breathing close to me— as I can hear her now."

He paused, listened with his ear turned to die doorway, dien
shook his head and went on.

"My brodier wanted to shout the cry of challenge— one cry
only— to let die people know we were freeborn robbers who
trusted our arms and die great sea. And again I begged him in the
name of our love to be silent. Could I not hear her breadiing close
to me? I knew the pursuit would come quick enough. My brother
loved me. He dipped his paddle widiout a splash. He only said,
'There is half a man in you now— the other half is in that woman. I
can wait. When you are a whole man again, you will come back
with me here to shout defiance. We are sons of die same mother.'
I made no answer. All my strengdi and all my spirit were in my
hands diat held the paddle— for I longed to be with her in a safe
place beyond the reach of men's anger and of women's spite. My
love was so great, diat I diought it could guide me to a country

where death was unknown, if I could only escape from Inchi
Midah's fury and from our Ruler's sword. We paddled with haste,
breathing through our teeth. The blades bit deep into the smooth
water. We passed out of the river; we flew in clear channels
amongst the shallows. We skirted the black coast; we skirted die
sand beaches where die sea speaks in whispers to the land; and the
gleam of white sand flashed back past our boat, so swiftly she ran
upon die water. We spoke not. Only once I said, 'Sleep,
Diamelen, for soon you may want all your strength.' I heard die
sweetness of her voice, but I never turned my head. The sun rose
and still we went on. Water fell from my face like rain from a
cloud. We flew in die light and heat. I never looked back, but I
knew that my brother's eyes, behind me, were looking steadily
ahead, for die boat went as straight as a bushman's dart, when it
leaves the end of die sumpitan. There was no better paddler, no
better steersman dian my brother. Many times, together, we had
won races in that canoe. But we never had put out our strength as
we did then— then, when for the last time we paddled together!
There was no braver or stronger man in our country than my
brodier. I could not spare the strength to turn my head and look at
him, but every moment I heard the hiss of his breath getting
louder behind me. Still he did not speak. The sun was high. The
heat clung to my back like a flame of fire. My ribs were ready to
burst, but I could no longer get enough air into my chest. And
then I felt I must cry out with my last breadi, 'Let us rest!' . . .
'Good!' he answered; and his voice was firm. He was strong. He
was brave. He knew not fear and no fatigue . . . My brodier!"

A murmur powerful and gende, a murmur vast and faint; the
murmur of trembling leaves, of stirring boughs, ran through die
tangled depths of the forests, ran over the starry smoothness of the
lagoon, and the water between the piles lapped die slimy timber
once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched die two
men's faces and passed on with a mournful sound— a breath loud
and short like an uneasy sigh of the dreaming earth.

Arsat went on in an even, low voice:

"We ran our canoe on die white beach of a little bay close to a
long tongue of land that seemed to bar our road; a long wooded
cape going far into the sea. My brother knew that place. Beyond
the cape a river has its entrance, and dirough die jungle of that
land there is a narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice.
Then we lay down to sleep on die soft sand in the shade of our
canoe, while she watched. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I
heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway down
the sky already, and coming in sight in the opening of die bay we
saw a prau manned by many paddlers. We knew it at once; it was
one of our Rajah's praus. They were watching die shore, and saw
us. They beat the gong, and turned the head of the prau into the

bay. I felt my heart become weak within my breast. Diamelen sat
on die sand and covered her face. There was no escape by sea. My
brodier laughed. He had die gun you had given him, Tuan, before
you went away, but diere was only a handful of powder. He spoke
to me quickly: 'Run widi her along die padi. I shall keep them
back, for they have no firearms, and landing in the face of a man
widi a gun is certain deadi for some. Run widi her. On die other
side of that wood there is a fisherman's house— and a canoe. When
I have fired all the shots I will follow. I am a great runner, and
before they can come up we shall be gone. I will hold out as long
as I can, for she is but a woman— that can neidier run nor fight, but
she has your heart in her weak hands.' He dropped behind the
canoe. The prau was coming. She and I ran, and as we rushed
along die path I heard shots. My brother fired— once— twice— and
the booming of die gong ceased. There was silence behind us.
That neck of land is narrow. Before I heard my brodier fire die
third shot I saw the shelving shore, and I saw the water again: the
moudi of a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. We ran down
to the water. I saw a low hut above die black mud, and a small
canoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I diought, 'that
is his last charge.' We rushed down to die canoe; a man came
running from die hut, but I leaped on him, and we rolled together
in the mud. Then I got up, and he lay still at my feet. I don't know
whether I had killed him or not. I and Diamelen pushed the canoe
afloat. I heard yells behind me, and I saw my brother run across
the glade. Many men were bounding after him. I took her in my
arms and threw her into die [canoe] . The men were close to him. I
looked, back I saw diat my brodier had fallen. He fell and was up
again, but die men were closing round him. He shouted, 'I am
coming!' The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I
looked at her. Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep
water. She was kneeling forward looking at me, and I said, 'Take
your paddle,' while I struck the water with mine. Tuan, I heard
him cry. I heard him cry my name twice; and I heard voices
shouting, 'Kill! Strike!' I never turned back. I heard him calling my
name again widi a great shriek, as when life is going out together
with die voice— and I never turned my head. My own name! . . .
My brodier! Three times he called— but I was not afraid of life.
Was she not there in diat canoe? And could I not widi her find a
country where deadi is forgotten— where death is unknown!"

The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and
silent figure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a
mist drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images
of the stars. And now a great expanse of white vapour covered the
land: it flowed cold and grey in the darkness, eddied in noiseless
whirls round die tree-trunks and about die platform of die house,
which seemed to float upon a resdess and impalpable illusion of a

sea. Only far away the tops of the trees stood outlined on the
twinkle of heaven, like a sombre and forbidding shore— a coast de-
ceptive, pitiless and black.

Arsat's voice vibrated loudly in the profound peace.

"I had her there! I had her! To get her I would have faced all
mankind. But I had her— and— "

His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He
paused, and seemed to listen to them dying away very far— beyond
help and beyond recall. Then he said quietly—

"Tuan, I loved my brother."

A breath of wind made him shiver. High above his head, high
above the silent sea of mist the drooping leaves of the palms rattled
together with a mournful and expiring sound. The white man
stretched his legs. His chin rested on his chest, and he murmured
sadly without lifting his head— "We all love our brothers."

Arsat burst out with an intense whispering violence—

"What did I care who died? I wanted peace in my own heart."

He seemed to hear a stir in the house— listened— then stepped
in noiselessly. The white man stood up. A breeze was coming in
fitful puffs. The stars shone paler as if they had retreated into die
frozen depths of immense space. After a chill gust of wind diere
were a few seconds of perfect calm and absolute silence. Then
from behind die black and wavy line of the forests a column of
golden light shot up into the heavens and spread over die semi-
circle of the eastern horizon. The sun had risen. The mist lifted,
broke into drifting patches, vanished into thin flying wreadis; and
die unveiled lagoon lay, polished and black, in the heavy shadows
at the foot of the wall of trees. A white eagle rose over it with a
slanting and ponderous flight, reached the clear sunshine and
appeared dazzlingly brilliant for a moment, dien soaring higher,
became a dark and motionless speck before it vanished into the
blue as if it had left the eaith for ever. The white man, standing
gazing upwards before the doorway, heard in die hut a confused
and broken murmur of distracted words ending with a loud groan.
Suddenly Arsat stumbled out with outstretched hands, shivered,
and stood still for some time with fixed eyes. Then he said—

"She burns no more."

Before his face die sun showed its edge above die tree-tops,
rising steadily. The breeze freshened; a great brilliance burst upon
die lagoon, sparkled on die rippling water. The forests came out of
the clear shadows of the morning, became distinct, as if they had
rushed nearer— to stop short in a great stir of leaves, of nodding
boughs, of swaying branches. In die merciless sunshine the
whisper of unconscious life grew louder, speaking in an
incomprehensible voice round the dumb darkness of that human
sorrow. Arsat's eyes wandered slowly, then stared at die rising sun.

"I can see nothing," he said half aloud to himself.

"There is nothing," said the white man, moving to the edge of
die platform and waving his hand to his boat. A shout came faindy
over the lagoon and die sampan began to glide towards the abode
of the friend of ghosts.

"If you want to come with me, I will wait all the morning," said
the white man, looking away upon die water.

"No, Tuan," said Arsat softly. "I shall not eat or sleep in this
house, but I must first see my road. Now I can see nodiing— see
nothing! There is no light and no peace in the world; but there is
deadi— death for many. We were sons of the same mother— and I
left him in the midst of enemies; but I am going back now."

He drew a long breadi and went on in a dreamy tone:

"In a little while I shall see clear enough to strike— to strike. But
she has died, and . . . now . . . darkness."

He flung his arms wide open, let diem fall along his body, dien
stood still widi unmoved face and stony eyes, staring at the sun.
The white man got down into his canoe. The polers ran smardy
along the sides of die boat, looking over their shoulders at die
beginning of a weary journey. High in the stern, his head muffled
up in white rags, the juragan sat moody, letting his paddle trail in
the water. The white man, leaning widi bodi arms over the grass
roof of the little cabin, looked back at the shining ripple of the
boat's wake. Before the sampan passed out of die lagoon into die
creek he lifted his eyes. Arsat had not moved. He stood lonely in
the searching sunshine; and he looked beyond the great light of a
cloudless day into the darkness of a world of illusions.